


In The Land Of Gods And Monsters

by FrancescaFiona



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: All vampires have extra abilities, And it's downhill from that realisation, Blood singer, Bloodlust, Carlisle's ability is pretty dark, Characters with mental health problems - possible triggers (sorry), Dark Romance, F/M, Family Curses, Fun family scenes, Gothic horror vibe, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Human Esme/vampire Carlisle, Human/Vampire Relationship, Hunter's obsession, It's not all dark :), Lana Del Rey songfic, Mega Carlisle angst, Paranoia (on many counts), Reference to serious domestic violence, Reincarnation, Some Humor, Some fluff and cute couple moments, Stalking, Witchcraft, a little Penny Dreadful-esque, suicide references, the Cullen kids need a mom. Desperately, the family is out of control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2019-10-29 21:38:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 95,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescaFiona/pseuds/FrancescaFiona
Summary: I'd given a lot of thought to how I might die.And dying at the hands of someone I love seems like a pretty bad way to go...*A merging of Bella and Esme’s stories*It is to the dreamy town of Forks that Esme Swan flees to safety, escaping her abusive husband, Charles, and, for a short time, all is well, until on her first day at her new job, one doctor looks at her with a loathing she can't explain.Could the ghost of Charles be back to get her? What does Dr Cullen have to hide? Why is he lying about his past? And why does Esme feel like she’s being hunted?The answer is that Esme has awakened something in the hunter.This woman sings to him.The beat of her heart, the melody of her blood and those damned eyes call him to her in ways he rather arrogantly (and also rather dismayingly) never thought possible again.Of course Carlisle would never seek to hurt her.Unfortunately, he might not have a choice.





	1. The Hunt Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> I hope this one isn't overdone - just if you're like me, too much Carlisle/Esme isn't a concept.
> 
> Enjoy ;)

The plane hit the bank of cloud as soon as it crossed the state line. Welcome to Washington, indeed. But Esme didn’t mind. This was home.

 

Getting stiffly off the plane, she collected her belongings. There were relatively few considering she was moving permanently but then she _had_ been in a bit of a rush. Leaving everything behind did help you to sort out what was important. Being _safe_ was important.

 

Esme had grown up in Seattle with her mother and brother, a brother who was eagerly waiting for her at the airport with his crinkly smile, moustache and wife Renée. Seriously Charlie, _who_ had a moustache like that in this day and age? 

 

Esme tutted to herself affectionately.

 

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

 

“Esme!” he cried when he saw her while Renée waved furiously.

“Hey,” Esme smiled shyly. “Thank you for meeting me.”

Charlie gave her a hug.

“How ya’ doin’ sis?” he asked happily, though warily.

He didn’t want the truthful answer to that question.

 

“Great!” lied Esme with her beaming smile, something both Charlie and Renée were pleased to see that _he_ hadn’t managed to take away from her.

 

They hopped into the car ready for the long drive to Forks in Charlie’s Police Cruiser. He was Chief of police there in the small town that he’d moved to after he and Renée got married. It was a quiet place and he assured Esme she’d like it. He hoped she would.

 

The drive was mostly a long string of prattle from Renée, punctuated politely by Charlie who had noticed that Esme wasn’t saying anything.

 

Arriving home after dark, Charlie showed Esme to her room. 

 

“This is it I’m afraid,” he said gesturing around the comfortable but sparse room that both he and Renée had worked hard on and didn’t want to be thanked for.

“Charlie, please,” Esme said softly. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

 

The two siblings looked at each other. Of course Esme would thank him, even after the shit-storm Charlie had unwittingly led her into for the past five years.

 

“Esme,” Charlie said gruffly, clearing his throat. 

 

About now something ought to be said.

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he mumbled. “I’m…I’m happy they got ‘im.”

 

Esme pursed her lips in thanks.

 

“Thank you Charlie,” she said quietly, as her rather reserved brother retreated to leave her with her thoughts.

 

She organised her salvaged belongings, sorting them on her bed to make them look more substantial. She obsessively grouped them by size and colour and then proceeded to fold her clothes into the draw. Anyone who knew Esme knew that an odd sock in the wrong draw was enough to keep her up at night.

 

Esme looked at the handful of precious things that she had managed to keep safe, that he hadn’t managed to smash in front of her, sad for what she had to leave behind. But she had to. He would have killed her. Her shaking hand went reflexively to her midriff, the habit always a painful reminder that she hadn’t managed to save the most important thing of all.

 

But at least she had ‘Mom’, the photograph that had been hidden for many years in Esme’s purse, a reminder of the woman who had passed away suddenly soon after Esme had got married, back when Charles was…

 

Esme wiped a tear from her eye. At least Mom never saw her unhappy.

 

Suddenly exhausted with emotion, she collapsed, fully dressed onto the bed. Esme hoped she might be tired enough to deserve a dreamless sleep. 

 

But of course not. _He_ was there.

 

***

 

 

The next morning, Esme woke late, at first thinking she was in the hospital again since the light was different to the Arizona morning through her bedroom window, but then she remembered. 

 

She had made it. 

 

Sure, she was bunking with her brother, had no money and no job, but there were worse places to be. Much worse.

 

She showered and stumbled down the stairs for something to eat.

 

“Hey!” said Renée brightly, gently massaging her baby-bump with her empty, but still warm, coffee mug. “Esme! Have some coffee!”

“Thanks!” said Esme gratefully. 

 

She and Renée were good friends and their friendship hadn’t been damaged by distance or the lack of contact since Esme had started having…difficulties…

 

Renée was different to Esme. Where Esme was neat and conscientious, Renée was proudly all-over-the-place, and wore chopsticks in her hair. She owned the small gift shop in town where the local Quilliuete tribe liked to sell their jewellery and was a perfect match to Charlie who was the Yang to her Yin.

 

She was also going to have a baby. 

 

She was also happy.

 

“So,” Renée sighed contentedly after Esme had been practically force-fed four croissants with jam.  “How do you like the house?”

 

Esme looked around the kitchen. It was like a tasteful mermaid’s palace.

 

“It’s lovely,” she said, examining a seashell from the windowsill.

 

Renée grinned.

 

“I know, right? That shell is from down at La Push, on the reservation” she gushed. “But Charlie helped me with some of the more… _abstract_ fittings. It’s so nice to have a husband who puts up with all my crazy schemes!!“

 

Seeing the change in her friend, Renée stopped herself before she could dig any further.

 

_Sticky…_

 

Esme stared blankly out of the window at the encroaching pine forest. She was torn between being afraid of it and wanting it to swallow her up.

 

“Esme,” said Renée slowly. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…”

 

She was kicking herself! She might as well have started talking about her baby!

 

But actually, all Renée really liked to talk about was her baby, her kind husband, her beautiful house or her business. None of which were really appropriate given the current…company.

 

“It’s fine,” Esme tried to laugh. “I’m not into censorship.”

 

Renée felt a pang for her friend. She was so sweet, even after everything.

 

“You might be after you hear Charlie swearing at the TV during the hockey!” laughed Renée, shaking her head. “God only knows what our little girl’s first word will be!”

 

Esme smiled. A double whammy there. But she couldn’t begrudge her friend her happiness. That wasn’t fair.

 

And over the next few weeks it seemed like Renée’s impossible bubble of enthusiasm was rubbing off on Esme. Charlie would feel his heart soar when he’d come home from work and hear the two women giggling happily as they cooked or did the laundry or did whatever the hell girls did. But this was an increasing problem. 

 

With Esme’s slightly alarming hyperactivity, the house was clean in half an hour, the dinner was cooked seemingly immediately and the laundry was folded in the baskets before Charlie and Renée could even blink. It was eerie to say the least. So Charlie had to have a think about how to entertain his twitchy sister, who still jumped every time she heard a loud noise.

 

“Maybe she should gat a job?” suggested Charlie in the groggy silence before he and Renée got out of bed in the morning.

“No!” hissed Renée. “It is way too soon! Plus we don’t want her to feel like she’s not welcome!”

 

Charlie shrugged.

 

“True, but _Renée,”_  

 

His voice had risen to that tone he used when he was incredulous. 

 

“I came home the other night to find the whole bookshelf re-arranged alphabetically, and the fridge magnets in rows. This obsessiveness…”

 

“…Means she’s still stressed,” said Renée gently.

 

Charlie snorted. Even though Renée was the kind of person who read self-help books for fun, she didn’t know his sister like he did.

 

“Nah,” he chuckled. “She needs independence. God knows Charles…”

 

His laugh faltered and he became serious.

 

“I’ll buy her a car,” Charlie said resolutely. “Then she can get a job and be manic somewhere else.”

 

And so he did. Billy Black, an old friend of the Chief, sold Charlie his old car for a very reasonable price and Esme started obsessively job-hunting. However, as it turned out her efforts weren’t necessary.

 

Renée heard from her friend _Louise Weber…_ that _Heather Stanley…_ had been told by _Rachel Newton…_ that Billy’s Black’s _nephew_ had overheard at a clinic at the hospital that there was a job being advertised for a Consultant’s Secretary. A job that Esme was qualified for and would be good at. 

 

Daring to be pleased, Esme asked Renée… to tell Rachel Newton…who would tell Heather Stanley…who would tell _everyone_ that Esme was interested. 

 

(Yes, it was a very small town and that was how it worked.)

 

Not surprisingly, word got round that the Chief’s sister wanted the job. And after only a quick interview, in which she breezed a little over for the reason for her gap in employment over the last few years, she got the job. Again, she was the Chief’s sister and it was a very small town. 

 

Only a week later, she found herself walking, a little nervously, up to the reception desk in the hospital to meet the front-of-house. 

 

And, little though Esme knew it at the time, from that moment, the hunt had begun.

 

 


	2. Another Esme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To explain, the point I'm trying to get across here is that after Carlisle's first meeting with Esme, he went completely nuts. Furthermore, when the Cullen family get introduced, you'll see that without Esme's input, the family is a little out-of-control, *giggles*, just a little.
> 
> Also, I imagine (and always have imagined) Carlisle to appear 37 years old+, cause, realistically, no hospital is gonna employ a 23 year old as a senior doctor, and expect him to be raising five teenagers at the same time, c'mon here. I found that less believable than the mind-reading vampire boyfriend.
> 
> Oh! That reminds me! As I've put in the tags, all vampires have an extra ability in this universe, because life will damn well be fair(ish) in my story!
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

In fact, that’s a lie.

 

The hunt had started over a century ago when on a muggy Columbus day, an over-exuberant teenage girl broke her leg, and her straight-laced, good, God-fearing doctor learnt the meaning of temptation.

 

Eve offered him the apple that day, but, with a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he didn’t take it. And he never forgot it.

 

However, sometimes during his long fits of melancholy he wondered if he should have, if God really wanted what people said He did. 

 

Because Esme died ten years later in the glittering spring of 1921. Suicide.

 

With a bitter chuckle, he would think that maybe he and and his Downfall were even more alike than he had thought at the time - self-destruction had always been another weakness of his.

 

The years that followed were turbulent, lapses in control seemed inevitable, inevitable too was that the good doctor’s resolve would again be tested, as it was that day in 1995 when a frantic mother delivered _another_ Esme, (six-years-old, female, broken left tibia, messy break, impossibly similar to a previous patient) to the hospital in Seattle and her blood, again, almost destroyed centuries of work.

 

But he walked away. Just.

 

Except it weakened him. The recurring punishment that was _Esme_ began to seem…worth it.

 

The third time would always be the charm. He would be ready when he saw any version of the woman again. He would act.

 

Dr Cullen had thought long and hard about the next meeting with this bad… _oh so_ good, penny.

 

It could be painless, she’d not need to be afraid for a second and he could break himself, and his family, from the curse she had surely brought upon them. He could bring them back out of the darkness.

 

And one day, there she was, older, beautiful…and sad… and maddeningly fragrant.

 

She was practically _handed_ to him, named as his.

 

But, after all his pain, all he had done to prepare for the moment, he couldn’t do it.

 

Not _then,_ anyway.


	3. The Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grrrrrr, Mondays...

The woman in charge of staffing at the hospital was called Josie and seemed nice enough. She showed Esme around the building and despite the overwhelming _hospital vibe_ that Esme had leaned to fear, she managed to keep her cool and behave, she hoped, like a fairly normal human being.

 

And apparently it worked - Josie was all smiles.

 

“So…Esme,” said her new boss after the tour had finished. “You have a fantastic record and so I’m sure you’ll have no problems. The other secretaries will train you as you go and to start you off gently we’ve put you in charge of our Dr Cullen.”

 

Esme noticed the smallest of blushes creeping into the woman’s cheeks which surprised her.

 

“Who is a _sweetheart,_ by the way.”

 

Esme nodded and politely ignored the Josie’s embarrassment.

 

“And should be in the staff room…” said Josie as she opened the door and peered into the room. “And…yes, there he is!”

 

She gestured to the man who was looking out of the window in a way that looked a little too private for a room stuffed full of other people. He seemed deep in the kind of musings that Esme wouldn’t have dreamed of disturbing but Josie had no such sensitivity.

 

“Dr Cullen,” called Josie. “This is your new secretary, Esme Swan.”

 

In what was really quite a surreal moment, the doctor turned and Esme saw him for the first time… Or was it the first time? Something tugged on Esme’s consciousness as she looked at the man. 

 

And he…was _beautiful._

 

Serious-looking, but beautiful.

 

Beautiful in a strangely timeless yet ancient way that belonged to a Nordic wilderness or a Roman temple with his attractively slightly hooked nose and hair in an electric gold. He was tall, and exuded an air of perfect health, though there were dark circles under his intensely angry black eyes.

 

Esme almost gasped, but not at his beauty, at the contrast between it and his glare.

 

Josie seemed to be caught up on the former and didn’t seem to notice the murder in his face. 

 

Esme started to panic. How did she not see that?

 

Carlisle smelt the panic.

 

The doctor’s throat constricted at the same time as he felt a kind of punch in the chest. This tiny woman with the toffee-coloured hair and the big brown eyes had brought the _furies of Ancient Greece_ upon him. And to top it off, her overwhelming scent was tinted with the delicious tang of a prey animal’s fear.

 

It’s her. Do it. _Do_ it!

 

Carlisle was in _pain._ He could’t endure that again. _Her_ again. 

 

That was an _Esme._

 

Esme shrank back a little more as she read the hatred on the man’s face. He must know how worthless she was. How stupid she’d been thinking that she’d be able to fool anybody!

 

Unaware of the bizarre stand-off in front of her, Josie carried on.

 

“…She’s just moved to town and she’ll be here for the foreseeable future,” she cheerfully informed the alpha predator in a business-like way. “So why don’t you take some time to get to know each other.”

 

 _But we already know each other, don’t we, Esme?_ thought the hunter. _You know me better than I know myself. And you keep coming back to prove it._

 

Josie, who was a very human-like sort of human looked from one of her charges to the other, considering her introduction job well done, meaning somehow the doctor’s face must have looked perfectly welcoming, though still Esme knew he was angry with her. Furious, livid.

 

“Of course,” he said pleasantly. “Welcome Esme.”

 

_Welcome Esme, yes welcome. Naturally you would have me do it here, wouldn’t you? In front of all these witnesses. You’ll make me kill them all too._

 

He held out a perfectly smooth hand to the woman.

 

It was a close thing.

 

If poor little Esme had known how _near_ she was to having her life drained from her, right there in the Forks Hospital Staff Room… 

 

…Or maybe she did. She approached Carlisle warily and almost…apologetically?

 

“Nice to meet you,” she replied warily in perhaps a deeper voice than Carlisle expected but it was beautiful, actually, and did not help him to control the lust that he felt.

 

“Great,” said Josie happily. “So I’ll just be in my office, Esme, if you need anything.”

She gave them both a smile and left.

 

Meanwhile Carlisle was in real trouble. Venom was pooling in his mouth, his throat was searing and his better judgement was pooling somewhere in the latter. 

 

Yes… _Yes…_

 

Then, he made the mistake of looking her in the eye, and hesitating. 

 

The Esme looked at him, afraid, but he was stopped short by the unmistakable ‘I’m sorry’ he saw in her eyes too. He was so shocked he recovered himself a little and saw for a moment an actual human woman trembling under the force of his blood-rage, not the temptress from hell he had so bitterly remembered.

 

He would have to do it, have to.

 

But not today.

 

Seemingly from nowhere, he produced a stack of papers.

 

“File these for me,” he snapped at the…the _demon_ that had been sent to haunt him again.

 

To save it’s life, Dr Cullen stalked away too quickly to see her hurt expression.

 

Later, alone in the ladies room, Esme let herself cry. She cried for everything, let out the tears she was too kind to let Charlie see.

 

However, she also wept for the way the doctor had treated her had looked at her - like she was the actual _devil._ If he was nice to everyone _but her_ …What did that say? There was obviously something wrong with _her._ Was…had _Charles_ been in the right the whole time?

 

She felt life she was going to vomit.

 

_No, pull yourself together Esme!_

 

She’d been through much worse that Dr Cullen. He was probably just having a bad day.

 

If Esme had been in the men’s room next door, she may have realised the extent of the bad day that Carlisle was having.

 

He shook with his head in his hands, each quiet, yet strangely distinctive sob he could hear from the woman’s toilets wrenching the knife deeper into his gut. He’d made her upset! That sweet woman was the last person who deserved to cry. Ever.

 

When he had met Esme’s other…Carlisle wanted to call them _‘selves’,_ he’d immediately liked her, really liked her. Liked her, but still wanted to kill her.

 

Her _blood._

 

It could have been worse, Carlisle reassured himself. It could be her husband or her kids sobbing right now. And his family would be on the run. In practice, his plan to free himself and his family for the price of his soul and Esme’s life wouldn’t work.

 

He splashed some water on his face. They’d have to move. Re-locate far away. He could not stay here. With her. No way. He’d just have to take his chances when they crossed paths again.

 

 _Then go now_ …hissed the voice he knew he wouldn’t listen to.

 

He wanted to stay.

 

“Hey, Carlisle,” said his co-worker Dr Gerardy as Dr Cullen removed himself from the bathroom after he had heard Esme retreat to an almost-safe distance away. “You’re still looking a little peaky there. You feel okay?”

 

Carlisle nodded…then shook his head.

 

“Actually I’m feeling a little sick” he experimented.”…My _throat_ …”

 

Dr Gerardy was concerned as he watched the doctor grasp at his own neck. Carlisle was so rarely ill. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d called in sick.

 

“Carl, m’friend,” he said with a crease in his forehead. “We can cover the by-pass if you wanna go home. You can’t operate in this state.”

 

Carlisle nodded.

 

“I think that might be a good idea,” he said with a tight smile, imagining the pumping heart he was due to operate on and seeing red.

 

Dr Gerardy nodded sympathetically as Carlisle practically fled down the corridor at a fraction of the speed he wanted to.

 

The next few hours were a blur, but when Dr Cullen came to his senses again, he was standing amongst the largest sea of bloodless animal corpses and dead foliage he had ever seen.

 


	4. The Thrum of the Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit more :)

About halfway home, Esme had to pull over.

 

She hung her head over the steering wheel and took a moment to breathe, cursing herself for her weakness but unable to shift the feeing that something _wrong_ had happened that day. Something _really_ bad. Something that had changed the world forever.

 

“Shit,” she muttered as she wiped a tear from her eye, trying to repeat what the psychologist had told her.

 

Six months. Give it six months, she’d said. Allow yourself to forget him, he’s no longer a part of your life. The anxiety, the paranoia, the obsessiveness, it’s natural. But it’s _him._ Don’t let _him_ control you. Breathe.

 

And she did, not wanting Charlie or Renée to worry when she got home.

 

Not that _she_ wasn’t worried. And, more alarmingly still, she didn’t feel like it was Charles who had brought on this little wave of anxiety.

 

She looked through the windshield at the passing traffic and watched the rain slide down it. She’d always loved changing weather. One of the many things she didn’t miss about Phoenix was the constant searing heat and blistering sunlight (which wasn’t exactly suitable for someone as fair as she was), but the perpetual mist in Forks, the clammy light rain, was starting to make her feel trapped, or blind, like she couldn’t…like she couldn’t…

 

There was a knock on her window and Esme jumped out of her skin.

 

“Hi there, is everything okay?” asked the voice as Esme restarted her heart.

 

Esme managed a weak smile at her ambusher and rolled down the window. It _would_ be that kind of town, the kind where people cared whether you were passed out in your car or not. Or maybe they were just nosy.

 

“Yes, I…just got some bad news,” Esme breathlessly fibbed to the concerned citizen, thinking it a more palatable explanation for her behaviour. “I’m okay. Thank you, though.”

 

“Well, I’m real sorry to hear that,” the guy said, sounding genuine, and looking slightly wide-eyed as he got a good view of the woman in the car.

 

Forks didn’t tend to make them quite like that.

 

“I’m Chris Newton, by the way,” he said, a small blush creeping into his cheeks as he stuck his hand awkwardly through the half-open window for her to shake.

 

“Um, yeah, I think I saw you in the staff room at the hospital, aren’t you one of the nurses?” Esme asked.

 

“Exactly right!” he said before he clicked his fingers as he sussed out why she’d know this and why he hadn’t known _her._

 

“And _you_ must be Esme Swan!” 

 

“Yep,” Esme said with a brave smile. “That’s me.”

 

He continued to grin like a fool for a few more moments and Esme squirmed under the attention.

 

“Well, hopefully see you again sometime?” he said at last, recovering the power of speech as he retreated to his truck.

 

“Sure, Chris, thanks,” Esme said, and meant it.

 

The injection of some normal, albeit a little awkward, behaviour into her day gave Esme the strength to drive home and smile convincingly at her sister in law as she struggled through the door.

 

“So, how was your first day?” Renée asked over dinner after Charlie had got home.

 

“It was…kinda intense,” Esme answered truthfully. “But it’ll get easier as I get used to it.”

 

_If I can._

 

“Aaaand who are you working with?” Renée asked though Esme suspected she had already heard that piece of information from _someone,_ at least.

 

This was Forks.

 

“Er, Dr… _Cullen,”_ she replied lightly, hoping neither her voice nor her face gave away how little she wanted to talk about him.

 

“Dr Cullen? Lucky _girl,”_ Renée chirruped, pretending to swoon as Charlie tried to look offended.

 

“Okay, Mrs Swan, I see how it is,” he teased, flicking his wife playfully with a napkin.

 

Esme stared down at her full plate as the couple-twaddle raged on around her for a few minutes before Charlie noticed.

 

“Did he…say something to upset you?” Charlie asked, seeing an expression on his sister’s face he wasn’t happy with.

 

“I…don’t know if I really saw him,” Esme said vaguely. “He went home sick, I think.”

 

“Honey,” Renée said, deaf to the silent sibling-conversation running parallel to hers. “You’d _know_ if you’d seen that guy.”

 

“Went home, huh?” Charlie said, as he got up to wash his plate. “I hope they still did Harry Clearwater’s heart thingy. He was really nervous about it.”

 

“Um, oh yeah, they operated, it went well, he’s fine,” Esme said distractedly, realising that was probably the first thing she should have told Charlie who had been worried about his friend.

 

“Everything okay, Es?” Renée asked gently. “Did you already eat?”

 

“You know…actually…it’s been a really long day,” Esme said apologetically, not wanting Renée to think she hadn’t liked her food but she just couldn’t face it. “…And I really need some _rest.”_

 

She got up from the table.

 

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Renée said, a little surprised. “Get some sleep, we’ll try to keep it down.”

 

Esme smiled a thanks and vanished upstairs.

 

Charlie and Renée shared a look, a worried look, and they weren’t the only concerned family.

 

 

When Carlisle finally made it back home at dawn from where he had awoken from his frenzy, somewhere just south of the Canadian boarder, he found one of his sons waiting for him. The tactful one.

 

“Carlisle,” said Jasper, concern etched on his face. “Alice told me what happened, are you alright?”

 

Carlisle turned with anguish.

 

“Jasper, I’m so sorry, but we’re going to have to move,” he said hoarsely.

 

“Move?” asked an impertinent voice as Rosalie appeared out of the forest, her eyes a new molten gold. “What? Now? _Again?_ Did you kill someone?”

 

Jasper cringed at how her brashness was received.

 

“Almost,” choked Carlisle.

 

“Emmett,” said Rosalie impatiently as her boyfriend appeared looking diagnostically un-ruffled. “What’s he taking about?”

 

“It seems Forks now has an Esme,” said Edward quietly as he emerged from the tree line, towing Bella.

 

There was silence as each member of the family digested this information, knowing full well what it meant, most of all Carlisle, who got down slowly to his knees and bowed his head to the earth, as if to take strength from the simplicity of the lives of the ants and earthworms below him. 

 

It didn’t work.

 

“So,” said Bella quietly. “What do we do?”

 

“What you should have done the last time,” Rosalie said quietly, catching Emmett’s eye.

 

Carlisle began to shake his head slowly against the dirt.

 

“Carlisle,” Rosalie said warningly. “You _know_ it’s inevitable in the end. Whether or _not_ this is some sick curse, like you believe, we have to end it. It’s been eating you up for too long.”

 

Carlisle groaned.

 

“You’ve been hunting the same girl for a century,” Emmett said in his classic matter-of-fact way. “That’s not healthy.”

 

Edward looked at his adopted father who had now smeared himself against the ground.

 

“But even _when_ we get set up in Maine,” he said, playing devil’s advocate, following the tormented man’s thoughts. “You know you’ll come back. You _know_ you will, Carlisle.”

 

“So we _are_ moving?” asked Rosalie, wanting clarification. “Because _you_ can’t be bothered to discreetly get rid of her?”

 

“Rosalie,” said Carlisle quietly. “Please, not now.”

 

“How bad can it be?” she asked, exasperated. “I killed as a _newborn_ and managed to resist their blood. Not that I wanted it.”

 

“Rose,” said Alice warningly.

 

“How bad,” Carlisle repeated, as if he were really giving the question some thought. “I can’t describe it.”

 

He looked up to the heavens for Divine guidance, and prayed for the right words.

 

“I can _still_ smell her,” he choked. “Even now. It’s the most wonderful…the most _painful_ thing. And if I see her again…”

 

He gazed into the distance.

 

“Yes, yes we most certainly are moving.”

 

“Alice,” Rosalie continued sharply. _“Are_ we really moving?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Great,” huffed Rosalie. “A _month_ before my finals.”

 

Edward laughed.

 

“Rose, you’re not at school to study, remember?“

 

“Edward,” she began shrilly. “Just because _you_ don’t care…”

 

They two of them continued to bicker as Jasper came to crouch next to Carlisle.

 

“I need…space,” mumbled Carlisle.

 

“I think that’s a good idea, Carlisle,” said Jasper, the family psychoanalyst, who understood bloodlust very well. “Get out of town. Go to Kate. Clear your head. Hunt. Then, if it’s no better when you come back, then we can sort out the move.”

 

Carlisle grasped his son’s hand fondly and clapped him on the back.

 

“Thank you Jasper But…there’s something else,” he continued quietly. “We may have a bigger problem than we thought.”

 

Alice raised her eyebrows questioningly. And how did she not know about this? 

 

But it was about the past, not the future.

 

 _“This_ Esme…” he said quietly. “Must be the one I met in Seattle as a child.”

 

Bella gave Carlisle a look, dismaying almost.

 

“…Which means she knows you too,” finished Edward.


	5. Where Is Their Damn House?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> Just a mention, I had previously called Esme's boss 'Susan' but since I'm including Sue Clearwater soon, I thought it would been too confusing, so I've changed her name to 'Josie' instead. I've been through the story to change it but apologies if I've missed a 'Susan' somewhere in there!
> 
> I hope you like the chapter! 
> 
> (Cue the Cullen kids).

 

For the next few days, Esme was left to drift, relieved that the doctor with his hostility wasn’t there but also afraid that she was the reason for his absence.

 

“You know,” she said cautiously to Christina, one of her new friends at work. “I’m not really sure that Dr Cullen…liked me very much.”

 

Christina chuckled.

 

“Esme, I’ve never known Dr Cullen _not_ like somebody,” she said. “I’m sure it was just because he was sick. Josie said he sounded rough on the phone this morning.”

“Oh, okay,” said Esme. “Lets hope his wife’s looking after him.”

 

Christina looked a little shocked, then her face melted in understanding.

 

“Oh! No I guess you wouldn’t have known would you?” she exclaimed.

“What?” said Esme.

 

Christina lowered her voice excitedly to gossip-mode.

 

“The Cullens moved here a few years back from Alaska because Mrs Cullen _died_ and Carlisle couldn’t bear to live there anymore.”

 

Esme gasped.

 

“Poor man! I didn’t know…”

 

Christina smiled sadly.

 

“You wouldn’t. He’s quite a private guy but it broke his heart, that’s why he can seem a little…”

 

_Murderous? Hate-filled? Psychopathic?_

 

“Professionally detached,” Christina finished.

 

This news bit at Esme all day. The thought of Carlisle being sad was oddly heartbreaking. And why ever he had hated her, it was petty to think that they couldn’t put it behind them for the sake of an easy working life.

 

“Hey, Josie,” she asked haltingly at the end of the day, having plucked up the courage to go through what she had been plotting. “I was wondering if you could tell me Dr Cullen’s address? I wanted to pop round with some soup for him or something.”

 

“That’s such a nice idea!” said Josie enthusiastically. “I don’t doubt that with six teenagers in the house he’ll appreciate that. Now…”

 

She turned to her computer and brought up the staff records.

 

“It’s quite a hike to their place…I’ve never been…no wonder we don’t see very much of them around town.”

 

She showed Esme the address. 

 

“So that’s a twenty minute drive out of town. That way.”

 

She pointed in the direction of the mountains. Esme felt her stomach clench.

 

“Thanks,” Esme said gratefully.

 

Before embarking on the journey, Esme stopped off at the supermarket to pick up groceries for dinner and find some suitable emblem of sympathy for poor Dr Cullen. And six motherless teens!

 

She was browsing the cake and cookies aisle when her gaze was met by a staring pair of black eyes under a crown of gold hair and she stopped, heart pounding, thinking it was Dr Cullen. However on second fugitive glance, she saw this was a woman. A young woman, probably no more then twenty.

 

And, Esme thought, could easily work as a model, judging by her almost painfully perfect, though slightly icy, good looks.

 

Esme tried a friendly smile causing the teen’s stare to become more of a sardonic, appraising smirk before the blonde flipped her long hair over her shoulder with a critical huff and stalked away.

 

Esme almost laughed. The family resemblance between this girl and her father was striking along with some _exceedingly_ bad manners.

 

 _The doctor sure knows how to raise his kids,_ Esme thought sarcastically, though then scolded herself for forgetting those poor kids were motherless. 

 

However, at the checkout Esme stood with box of cookies in her hand, feeling like a fool.

 

Dr Cullen’s daughter certainly hadn’t looked like the type to appreciate _that_ sort of gift.

 

But Esme bought them anyway. Goodwill was important and, in this world, often a certain degree of ass-kissing was required just to survive, Esme knew it.

 

Having said that, as Esme got further and further from town and failed to see any exit to what might be the Cullen’s home after half an hour of driving, she allowed herself to get a little angry. It wasn’t _her_ fault that he and his daughter didn’t like her (and had behaved really quite _rudely)_ so she didn’t know why she had to make the effort. Trying to search for this _damn_ house he insisted on having out in the middle of-

As Esme rounded the bend, she was surprised to see three pale people standing beside the road, motionless, apparently waiting for something.

 

Hitchhikers?

 

But somehow Esme knew that wasn’t the case. She took in the pale, unearthly beauty of the people, young people, and as she got a little closer there could be no mistaking who they were.

 

Esme’s stomach fluttered with unease.

 

What the hell would Dr Cullen’s kids be doing standing out here in the drizzle? Where was the house?

 

 _Almost like they knew I was coming,_ Esme thought, despite herself _extremely_ creeped-out.

 

She pulled over.

 

“Hi,” she said cautiously after rolling down her window. “You, er, wouldn’t be Dr Cullen’s children, would you?”

 

“Yes! I’m Alice,” gushed a tiny pixie-haired girl with an enthusiasm that made Esme jump a little. “And this is Jasper.”

 

She gestured to the blond youth behind her who smiled stiffly.

 

“And my name is Edward,” said the third boy who had unusual spiked bronze-coloured hair, extending his hand to give Esme her second freezing handshake of the week.

 

“Bad circulation,” he mumbled in explanation for his icy grasp.

 

_O…kay then?_

 

“I’m Esme Swan,” the woman explained, wishing she didn’t have to bring the whole family into her paranoia. “I, um, just started working with your father and I’m not certain we got off on the right foot, exactly. So I brought you some cookies.”

 

She gave what she hoped wasn’t too in-genuine of a smile.

 

“Peace offering,” she laughed hopefully.

 

She handed the box over to Edward (who was giving off serious ‘older brother’ vibes and was clearly the leader of the group). He gave the food rather an odd look for a second but then he smiled at Esme.

 

“Thank you,” he said, in a rather old-fashioned, formal tone which made it hard for Esme to know if he was being sarky or not. “He’ll be very touched. He’d thank you himself but I’m afraid he’s very contagious.”

 

“Of course!” said Esme quickly, surrendering her offering through the window. “I understand.”

 

“You are his secretary,” said the girl suddenly and, even from the drivers seat of the car, Esme barely had to look up to make eye contact since she was so short.

“He…er, told you about me?” asked Esme warily, worried about what the children might think of her.

“He said that you seemed very capable,” said Edward quickly. “And that he’d hoped that you could have seen him on a better day, he wasn’t feeling his best.”

 

“Oh,” said Esme, feeling a much larger rush of relief than she would have expected. “Well, I’m glad. I was worried I may not have made a very good first impression. I can be…a bit of a let-down at times.”

 

Jasper was surprised to feel the wave of hot anger that rolled off Edward, despite his polite smile, as he heard what Esme was thinking.

 

In response, Jasper sent out a wave of acceptance towards Esme and felt her relax.

 

“I’m sure that’s not true,” said Jasper politely, in his southern drawl.

 

Esme was thrown for a second, wondering why this one teenager had a completely different accent than the other two. Perhaps he was hoping to go to drama school or something?

 

Jasper felt Edward’s amusement second-hand at this thought.

 

“Well,” she said, not sure what else to. “I…guess I ought to be going, then...”

 

She glanced around at the dense and wild-looking forest that surrounded the road on both sides like Moses’ parted sea. Mist hugged the tops of the trees and darkness hung like ribbons between their branches.

 

“Do you three need a ride home?” she asked, with the sudden urge to sweep the three children to safety.

 

“No thank you, Esme,” Edward answered in a rather rehearsed sort of way. “But that is very considerate of you.”

 

She looked dubiously at the gathering rainclouds above them.

 

“Well…if you’re sure…” she said, giving them an appraising look that the little one, Alice, returned with a beaming smile. “It was great to meet you. Please give your father my best.”

 

Edward nodded.

 

“We’ll be sure to do that, Miss Swan,” he assured her.

“And don’t worry,” called the girl, Alice, in her wind-chime voice as Esme started the engine. “You’ll be the best of friends in no time!”

 

It was only after Esme was back at Charlie’s, mulling the odd meeting over in her head, and Jasper’s influence had worn off, that she wondered how the tiny girl could sound so sure.

 


	6. The Lightning Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> So glad you're still reading!
> 
> Just had to mention (and I can't believe I forgot to before now), 'Gods And Monsters' is a song by Lana Del Rey which I think suits this fic down to the ground, so that's why I picked it as the title.
> 
> Hope you like the chapter!

 

As usual, Kate met Carlisle a few miles away from the Denali home.

 

Tonight she was waiting for him on a craggy slope of mountainside, silhouetted against the starry sky looking beautiful. Like always. 

 

And, like always, she was met by that perfect face.

 

Kate grinned.

 

“We don’t have a thunderstorm tonight, are you sure we can still be discreet?” she said teasingly in greeting as Carlisle took of his shirt in the considerate, neat way he did everything that did not pertain to living things.

 

“Yes,” he said plainly, face emotionless.

 

Bored, almost, though his eyes were pleading.

 

_Say no. Don’t let me do this again. Choose something better._

 

Kate sighed and walked towards him, deciding directness might do best on that particular night, sensing a distinct storminess under his poise. She traced her hands over his bare chest.

 

“And…is this ‘sure’ Carlisle the one who hates himself or the one who hates everyone else?” she purred. “Or has he grown out of that yet?”

 

There was a slither of movement.

 

“I guess he hasn’t then,” Kate gasped through clenched teeth as she tried to prise away the hand clamped painfully around her wrist.

 

 She sent a bolt of electricity down Carlisle’s arm. His grunt of pain as he released his prisoner sounded almost satisfied.

 

“Masochistic to the core, huh?” Kate asked, unshaken but angry.

 

“Do you enjoy this? Do you _want_ me to hurt you?” he asked, voice smooth like a ripple, face like a gargoyle, going to grab again. “Want me to _really_ hurt you?”

 

Kate was getting pissed off.

 

“Carlisle, what is this?” she asked, shoving him away irritatedly. “Why did you suddenly decide to come here? Alice didn’t tell me.”

 

Carlisle’s face looked oddly boyish and confused for a moment, then clouded with rage.

 

“Esme,” he snarled, and then lunged to rip off Kate’s dress.

 

She slithered out of reach at the last second.

 

“In that case, sex isn’t the answer,” she snapped, steeling herself. “I think we might have to have a _conversation.”_

 

Carlisle sat down in one fluid movement.

 

“Alright then,” he said with dangerous mock nonchalance, patting the ground next to him for Kate to sit. _“Converse_ with me.”

 

Slowly, Kate did just that, eyes never leaving his.

 

“She show up again? Esme?” she asked, knowing all about the ‘little problem’ that had ruined her friend.

 

It was at times like, she appreciated just how blessed she was to have a flawless vampire memory, allowing her to recall the doctor pre-1911 when he had been a very different person. Pious, a little mopey, perhaps, but so _achingly_ kind.

 

“At work,” he said crisply. “She works for me.”

 

 _“With_ you,” Kate corrected.

 

Carlisle turned to her with a bitterly sarcastic smile.

 

“She works _with_ me, at Forks General Hospital.”

 

Carlisle gazed out across the moonlit forest which, from their vantage point, looked like a vast silver blanket. Kate neglected the view to study her companion and traced a finger lightly down his face, feeling more like Jasper than ever.

 

The doctor cringed away, his vulnerability looking strangely endearing despite his muscle.

 

She could feel his pain like her electricity.

 

 _You poor man,_ Kate thought, stroking the bags under his eyes as he sat motionless. _You’re so in love._

 

He’d once, rather curtly, told her of his human life and of the years before he changed Edward and, to Kate (who had always had a family who loved her in both her lives), the loneliness sounded like too much to bear.

 

Perhaps he had never felt romantic love before and couldn’t in fact identify it.

 

Kate sighed, hoping she wouldn’t upset Carlisle. It was always a risk with severe consequences.

 

“I don’t think she’s just a singer to you, Carlisle,” she said at last, in one great sigh. “This Esme.”

 

He said nothing and did not move.

 

She turned to face the trees, wondering which one he was staring at. It was impossible to tell.

 

“I’ve had a singer before,” she continued softly. “Twice. The first I killed, but the second got away in a weird twist of fate. And I never really thought about it again.”

 

She let the silence breathe for a moment.

 

“A vampire can get over that,” she told Carlisle. “A _physical_ wanting is in our nature, we are unchanged by this…‘demonising’ of ourselves.”

 

Carlisle said nothing.

 

“But if we meet someone who _humanises_ us,” she whispered. “We are forever changed.”

 

The doctor was on his feet in an instant, towering over her.

 

“You think this woman has got the better of me?” he spat. “That I am _weak?”_

 

“I never said that,” Kate said calmly. “So maybe _you_ do.”

 

Angry or not, Carlisle heard the truth in Kate’s words and it hit hard. She leapt upon his thoughtfulness.

 

“Vampires can go mad by losing a mate,” she said. “That would be in vampire _or_ human form, we both know that.”

 

_Mate…_

 

Carlisle toyed with the concept.

 

“You…think I’ve gone mad?” he asked quietly, though that wasn’t really what he meant.

 

Kate considered this and, yes, she _did_ think Esme was his. How could she not be, having fuelled this obsession for so long?

 

“…Maybe a little,” she replied in the same cryptic way, giving him the answer he sought.

 

He looked thoughtful and Kate recognised the little crease between his brows she had seen sometimes when he was reading a very dense medical text he found interesting.

 

He tucked himself gently back down on the ground.

 

“And now she’s back after all these years?” Kate asked.

 

“An Esme Swan just moved to Forks. She’s working as my secretary,” he said with a face screwed up as if this offended him. “She looks the same, sounds the same, behaves the same…”

 

His face contorted to a new, savage kind of beauty.

 

 _“Smells_ the same.” 

 

“Right,” Kate said. “And you told me you saw her in 1995?”

 

“Yes. She was a child then,” Carlisle huffed.

 

“And she’s not a child now,” murmured Kate thoughtfully.

 

Carlisle gave a bitter laugh and began to put his shirt back on very pointedly.

 

“Yes, children grow up, die and are reincarnated as some man’s personal tormentor,” he said bitterly. “Why, however, somebody already as tormented as me would need-”

 

“Oh for _fuck’s sake!”_ Kate shouted, reaching the end of her short tether. “Stop _saying_ that! Stop _being_ that!”

 

“Stop being what, exactly, _my dear?”_ Carlisle asked her, as condescendingly as he could (which could be rather impressively so).

 

 _“That_ man,” she cried. “Who lives in a festering pit of awful self loathing. And feeds it with the gambling…the women…the revenge, the… _excess._ Carlisle! it has to stop!”

 

“It’s what I am,” he said coldly.

 

“No. It’s what you’re choosing, and, frankly, trying too hard to be,” she declared.

 

He raised an eyebrow.

 

“Look, if you _really_ wanted to be evil, you’d walk into town and drain every human dry. Like you could.” Kate argued. “And who’s going to stop you with _your_ ability? Aro? Jane? Me? The human military?”

 

She barked a laugh.

 

“You have to stop being so afraid of yourself.”

 

“You would be if you could do what I can do,” he said in a rush.

 

“And, thank God, I can’t,” she replied.

 

He looked down for a second as they both took a moment to collect their thoughts. The wind had picked up a little and was whispering playfully through the forest, as if the while landscape were giving one great sigh.

 

 _I know how you fucking feel,_ Kate thought wearily, glancing back to Carlisle who looked like he wanted to say something.

 

“Are we going to have sex or not?” he asked briskly, breaking the lull. “Or have I just wasted my time here?”

 

“That would be ‘or not’,” Kate replied with a scowl which she had to work to keep in place when she saw the wound that was rejection plain on Carlisle’s face - a wound she wasn’t meant to see.

 

“Fine,” he said flatly. “Do…I get a reason for your sudden change of heart?”

 

“Well, in truth,” Kate began. “Every time you sleep with me, I…feel like you’re trying to _destroy_ yourself. It’s not all that flattering.”

 

Carlisle froze.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“People often refer to casual sex as ‘finding comfort’ in somebody,” she continued. “But us…it’s like you want to _die.”_

 

Carlisle’s extensive mind jumped through an arc of emotions: denial, anger, confusion and shame before he found it in himself to respond.

 

“Am I being… _dumped?”_ he asked slowly, though strangely as if he found the concept amusing.

 

Kate smiled sadly.

 

“Carlisle, I hate to inform you, but we were never really together.”

 

At this, he looked as if he didn’t quite understand.

 

“Look, we’re not soulmates…or whatever the vampire equivalent is,” Kate said squarely. “We’re no Eleazar and Carmen. As a vampire you know when you’ve found _Them._ And I think we’d know by now if we had. And frankly…”

 

Her voice rose an octave.

 

“…Frankly I’m rather _bored_ of entertaining someone who’s turing into quite an _unpleasant_ man.”

 

“I’m fucking _unpleasant,”_ Carlisle hissed. “Because of _Esme,_ who wants to fucking ruin _everything_ I’ve-”

 

 _“She’s_ not the issue!” shouted Kate, finger jabbing at his heaving chest. “You’re externalising something internal. This is about _your_ _instincts,_ not her prowess as witch, or whatever the hell you think is going on.”

 

“But _Esme_ Platt? And _Esme_ Swan? Same unusual name, look the same, have the same blood?” Carlisle snarled, looking every inch the vampire. “Coincidence…or _conspiracy?”_

 

“They could easily be relatives,” Kate said plainly. “Look, you think you’ve been cursed. You want to break the curse. Breaking the curse doesn't mean _killing her,_ Carlisle, breaking the curse is accepting your own bloodlust _and other lusts_ once and for all.”

 

Carlisle looked like he wanted to argue so Kate’s voice took on a sterner tone.

 

“Dr Cullen, you are going to feed yourself, get a shower and stop acting like a douche by accusing women of being witches to excuse your own faults,” she announced. “Society really has moved on. And go apologise to your new workmate.”

 

She huffed a slightly incredulous laugh.

 

“Just think, the poor lady has to deal with _you_ eight hours a day, Monday to Friday. ’S the least you can do.”

 

And, after only a few moments of turbulent silence, to Kate’s amazement, her tormented ex-lover agreed with her.


	7. Family Meeting!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man can't hold his blood...

 

“Family meeting!” shouted Rosalie from the living room, needlessly loudly, all the while glaring at the box of cookies she’d watched the dumb human buy for them which sat innocently where the sofa used to be before Emmett broke it.

 

Alice, of course, was already present, sitting dreamily in her normal spot on the floor.

 

The other Cullen teens filed in stormily, unaccustomed to any kind of family organisation and finding Rosalie’s sudden attempt rather tiring.

 

“Oh _really,_ though?” huffed Edward in response to what was on her mind, rumpling up his hair.

 

“Yes, we _do_ need to talk about this!” Rosalie snapped, while Emmett nodded loyally at her side, though it didn't look as though he knew what was going on.

 

“Sorry, _what_ is this all about?” Bella asked, looking from Rosalie to Alice to her husband and back again.

 

“This is about our family,” Rosalie said. “And how we’re going to protect it from a human who is about to get too close.”

 

“We had the same issue when Bella was human,” Edward sighed wearily. “And that resolved itself.”

 

“But this time it’s a little different,” Rosalie countered. “Bella wasn’t your singer.”

 

There was a moment of quite while the vampires gave this thought.

 

“…If ah may,” Jasper said at last. “Ah have often wondered if Esme did not mean more to Carlisle than he has chosen to tell us. He feels confused by his feelings for her, but ah sense they aren’t all negative.”

 

He took a breath to continue but was interrupted.

 

“That’s a wonderful idea, Jasper!” Alice squealed, flickering to her feet to squeeze him in a junkyard crusher’s hug.

 

“Er, hello?” Rosalie asked, annoyed.

 

“Ah was going to suggest one of _us_ might change Esme to a vampire,” he said. “That way she would no longer tempt him with her blood and they might…”

 

He shared a knowing look with Alice while Edward’s eyebrows flew up into his hair.

 

“…Get to know each other a little better.”

 

“No. Fucking. Way!” laughed Emmett who, despite not always being very emotionally receptive, was very much so to any sexual inference. “Please tell me Carlisle doesn’t sleep with his secretary! What a cliché!”

 

“Technically he can never actually sleep with her,” murmured Edward and Bella in unison, enjoying a private joke of theirs with identical smiles on their faces.

 

 _“Sleep_ with her!” Rosalie cried, voice an octave higher than normal. “He’s going to kill her! Have you _seen_ him lately? Jesus!”

 

“Nobody’s seen Jesus in two thousand or so years, silly!” Alice giggled.

 

“If he ever existed,” Bella said under her breath.

 

Rosalie mouthed wordlessly.

 

“Carlisle’s been worse than normal since that girl moved here,” she rushed when she recovered the power of speech and had decided not to attack her sisters. “Frankly, I can’t take his negative energy anymore. So either we move or she is somehow _removed,_ using any means necessary.”

 

“Well, when Dr Misery has finished screwing Kate’s brains out and has savaged some unlucky nature reserve, I’m sure he’ll feel better about the whole thing,” Emmett said optimistically. “It might not come to that.”

 

Rose glared at him.

 

“She’s actually a very sweet lady,” Edward said conversationally.

 

Emmett spluttered with laughter.

 

 _“Kate?”_ he asked incredulously.

 

“No, Esme,” Edward said.

 

At the mention of the name, Rosalie stared at the cookie box as if trying to incinerate it with her eyes. Sadly, her own talent was far more discreet.

 

“Her ex-husband was a character, though,” Edward continued with a frown between his brows. “From what I can make out.”

 

“Fantastic,” Rosalie said sweetly. “She’s single! Happy days! Why don’t we set them up on a date?”

 

Her voice dropped to sarcastic normality again. 

 

“See how well _that_ fucking goes!”

 

Edward’s head snapped up.

 

“Careful, Rose, I can hear him. He’s on his way back.”

 

He smirked.

 

“Kate gave him a telling off.”

 

“What mood’s he in?” Bella asked, a little nervously.

 

Edward cocked his head to one side to listen.

 

“Great, fantastic. A little manic, perhaps…”

 

To demonstrate Edward’s point, in less time than it should have taken, even at the speed of a normal vampire, the door opened and closed in the same breeze and their adopted father stood before them, looking extremely windswept and extremely pleased with himself.

 

The other vampires eyed him warily.

 

“Er…Carlisle?” Emmett asked haltingly, having given the half-naked man a look up and down. “How much did you feed?”

 

The doctor’s irises were almost silver and he seemed to be trembling.

 

“Sufficiently that…” he began brightly. “…I believe myself not to be a danger to Miss Swan at work.”

 

“What!” Rosalie asked, incredulous.

 

“I think he’s a little _over-fed,”_ Jasper muttered quietly to Alice who looked practically giddy at the prospect.

 

“I’m going to see Miss Swan and apologise for my behaviour towards her,” Carlisle explained cheerily, grinning like the closest thing Dr Cullen could get to a buffoon.

 

“You’re not going out like that,” Bella said plainly.

 

“You’re going back?” screeched Rosalie. “You’ll kill her!”

 

“‘Course not,” Carlisle said brightly, eyes darting around. “She’s far too important for that.”

 

Alice shared a smug look with anyone who wasn’t gaping open-mouthed at the doctor.

 

“Please wear the blue shirt!” she burst, suddenly. “She really likes that one!”

 

“Does she?” Carlisle asked interestedly, vanishing upstairs before Edward could answer the rhetorical question.

 

The doctor re-appeared a few moments later looking perfectly presentable. 

 

A fraction more so than usual, Rosalie noticed.

 

“She would drool over you whatever you wore, Carlisle,” she said icily as he swaggered out to his car and the rest of the family filed out to watch in fascination. “She didn’t look very picky to me.”

 

Carlisle shrugged unapologetically.

 

“Second appearances are important,” he said loftily. “Especially when one is trying to _un-do_ the first.”

 

Rosalie’s lips tightened into a thin line.

 

“Quite right, quite right, I should say,” Emmett brayed in the stuffiest English accent he could manage as Carlisle got into his Mercedes. “Oh and Bond… _Do_ try and remain emotionally detached, if you could, old boy.”

 

Carlisle rolled his eyes.

 

“The accent jokes were funny for the first _thirty_ years, I suppose,” he conceded, feeling too elated to properly chastise his most boisterous adopted son.

 

“Maybe we shouldn’t let him drive…” mused Bella with a look of suspicion on her face as Carlisle became apparently fascinated with the control for his rear windscreen wiper in his new, blood-buoyed state of consciousness.

 

“Nah…” Emmett said before turning towards the car and raising his voice needlessly. “Carlisle, bro! You’re all good, buddy. Leave the thingy alone now. C’mon.”

 

Rose smirked behind him.

 

“You’re going to work, remember? At the hospital?” the enormous vampire continued slowly.

 

“Yes, yes,” Carlisle said vaguely, dismissing the boy with a lazy swat of his hand out of his window. 

 

“Alright then, sir!” Emmett called with a salute and a grin in the direction of Carlisle’s retreating car. “I’ll be seeing _you_ at the altar!”

 

The doctor merely waved in response as the car rounded the corner at a speed that didn’t seem possible, let alone _legal._

 

“God help the poor woman,” Edward muttered when Carlisle’s jamboree of happy thoughts had faded from his ‘earshot’. 

 

“God help _us,”_ Emmett said. “It’s just like…remember that time at that Christmas market?”

 

He turned to the rest of the family excitedly.

 

“Munich ’87?” Edward asked, chuckling with the memory.

 

“Man can’t hold his blood,” Rosalie said with a grudging smile twisting her lips.

 

“I hope he calms down before he gets there,” Bella frowned.

 

“Oh, he will,” Alice beamed, leaning in to Jasper who looked a little shocked at his father’s good mood.

 

“Well, that’s daddy happily married off,” Emmett whispered contentedly into Rosalie’s ear. “And now we have the house to ourselves…”

 

“And four other people,” Edward reminded him flatly, unimpressed with the path his thoughts were taking.

 

Ignoring the fact that Edward even existed, as was her custom, Rosalie leaned in and kissed Emmett hotly on the lips.

 

“I feel like skipping first period,” she chucked.

 

Emmett kissed her back enthusiastically.

 

“Make that first _and_ second,” he growled as the rest of the family made themselves very scarce.


	8. God Help Her, He Smiled...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then they fall in love...

 

When Esme nervously scurried into her office when she got to work, Dr Cullen was waiting for her. He looked completely recovered from his illness and his eyes which Esme remembered vividly as an chasm-like coal-black were now such a light gold colour, they almost gave off their own light.

 

The doctor also looked much more mellowed out. Was he… _on_ something?

 

And then, God help her, he _smiled._

 

The children were good looking (and so must his wife have been thought Esme with quite an odd feeling in her stomach) but they weren’t a shade on his father. He was like a god, even half-stoned as she suspected he might be.

 

He was dressed and groomed with impeccable, though modest, neatness and exuded an air of cleanliness and calm. The perfect professional, encased in the body of a blond Adonis, who looked very good in a light blue shirt, she may add.

 

Despite his calmer demeanour, Esme’s tummy twisted in knots with nerves at how she would be received but Dr Cullen continued to smile with genuine friendliness.

 

“Esme!” he said. “Good to see you!”

 

She smiled with relief, and surprise as she sat down opposite him.

 

“And thank you for the cookies by the way,” he said. “Which were _devoured!”_

 

_Hmmm, the munchies._

 

“I’m glad you liked them,” said Esme shyly and Dr Cullen grinned.

 

“Now,” he said, leaning a little closer, but not much. “I wanted to apologise for the way I spoke to you last week, I was feeling a little under the weather and I know I snapped at you which wasn’t fair, especially on you first day.”

 

He looked down guiltily.

 

“No!” cried Esme, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, having finally seen what clearly every other person saw in the doctor. “Don’t worry about it. I understand.”

 

 _I don’t think you do,_ thought Carlisle a little sadly.

 

“Well, thanks,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she continued warmly. “Your kids said you weren’t well yesterday.”

 

She smiled.

 

“They were all extremely polite,” she said, forgetting the strangeness of the meeting under the influence of this beautiful man.

 

“Yes they are,” chuckled Carlisle fondly.

 

It was easy to see that he loved his kids.

 

“And!” he said brightly, (cue the proud father). “They’re all doing really well at school. The way it’s looking I’m going to be putting the six of them through college.”

 

He winced for Esme’s benefit.

 

“I’m going to have to start working extra hours.”

 

“Would they even let you?” asked Esme, who had conscientiously typed up his shift sheet during his absence. “You work way longer than everyone else.”

 

“That’s true,” he said sadly.

 

Eager to change the topic, since the current one was going in a dangerous direction, Carlisle directed a question at Esme, eager to learn more about her.

 

“So, do you have any little nightmares of your own?” he asked and instantly regretted it as his vampire eyesight caught the spasm of pain across Esme’s face.

 

“Er, I…I am not able to have children,” she said quietly.

 

Carlisle would have kicked himself. He wasn’t usually so careless.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said genuinely.

 

Esme shrugged.

 

“Thank you.”

 

They sat in…well not quite an awkward silence yet, but somebody really ought to say something if they were going to keep staring at each other like that.

 

“What’s that accent?” Esme asked the doctor at last.

 

He smiled.

 

“I was born in England,” he said. “London. My father was a great stickler for received pronunciation.”

 

He chuckled.

 

“Even after years and years in the States, I can’t shift the accent completely.”

 

“It makes you sound really smart,” Esme joked, laughing a little.

 

“My eldest tells me it makes me sound like a jack-ass,” he said with a grin.

 

“Well, that’s a real Americanism,” Esme said with a matching expression. “There’s hope for you yet, Dr Cullen.”

 

“Ha!” Carlisle cried, letting our a great peal of bell-like laugher which was so violent and so charming it shocked her into laughter of her own.

 

Esme felt her spirit soar as she giggled, as if he were flying her above himself like a kite with his very presence.

 

“So…” offered Carlisle after their chuckles had finally died away. “How are you liking the town?”

 

“Very much,” said Esme, eyes locked intently on Carlisle’s face. “It’s beautiful.”

 

Then, realising she had been staring, she looked down suddenly, cheeks a little flushed.

It felt like Carlisle’s throat blistered at the sight of it.

 

“I’m glad,” he said, sounding strangely strained. “I heard Arizona is beautiful too.”

 

Esme looked at him quizzically. Carlisle wondered if his delivery of that one had been as he’d hoped. Perhaps it sounded too intense.

 

Esme was shocked, but oddly pleased. It really sounded as if the doctor had been trying to _flirt_ with her. The kite flew higher.

 

“Depends on your taste a suppose,” she said in her typical warm tone, flashing Carlisle a smile.

 

He smiled back, as lightly as he could, though he was scrutinising her too. With the recent death of five bears, three mountain lions, eight deer and a few dozen acres of unspoiled wilderness on his hands, Carlisle could just about think about something other than this woman’s blood.

 

His mind worked so quickly, he was able to take in every detail of her face in a second. 

 

She was attractive for a human, her face a symmetrical heart-shape, framed by waves of the most beautiful natural caramel. The dimples especially made an impression. And she had huge expressive brown eyes, complete with the classic Bambi-lashes. That was the second thing he’d noticed about her when he and Esme Platt had first met all those years ago.

 

Beauty.

 

Quite alarmingly, he suddenly became hers.

 

With a kind of dull horror, Carlisle realised that he might not be _able_ to move away. She was so captivating and the thought of never seeing her again made him ache.

 

My _Esme. My_ Esme.

 

But only a second had passed, and right about now she would be wanting a response to…what was it she said again? Carlisle had never been this distracted before.

 

“Er…yes,” he offered lamely.

 

Esme eyed him with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Look at him all flustered!

 

“Morning all!” cried Josie cheerfully, the emotional brick wall.

 

The spell was broken to leave the quite flushed Esme to greet the invader.

 

“Hi Josie,” she said meekly.

 

“And I’m glad _you’re_ back!” she said to Dr Cullen, who had again erected his firmly professional manner.

 

Something about Josie’s friendliness with the doctor…along with the prolonged eye-contact, for some reason made Esme want to burst in to tears.

 

“It’s good to be back,” he said serenely. “Not nearly enough blood and guts at home.”

 

He smiled to himself, enjoying what Esme correctly assumed to be a family inside joke.

 

“Well it’s just paperwork here at the moment,’ Josie said warningly. “So don’t get too excited.”

 

Carlisle sighed theatrically.

 

“Well,” he sighed with exaggerated reluctance. “You know me. Always one for a stapler.”

 

Sue laughed as she clopped away, but it turned out that Carlisle wasn’t exactly joking. He was extremely meticulous and Esme watched him file his papers, mesmerised and very approving.

 

“Oh! Sorry!” he laughed after a moment. “I’m probably messing up your order here!”

 

He handed the stapler back to Esme.

 

“You’re the boss!”

 

Esme grinned.

 

“No permanent damage done,” she said kindly.

 

Closer than they had been to each other so far, Esme could smell Carlisle. He smelled wonderful. Kind of like a mixture of peppermint and eucalyptus. It was so _good,_ she yearned suddenly to seize him and bury her face in his collar, just to fill her lungs with it.

 

“You smell good,” she said, in a conversational manner, then blushed as she realised what she’d said.

 

_Really, Esme?_ **_I_ ** _smell good?_

 

Carlisle didn’t appear to mind her strange comment. He just gave a kind of sweet half-smile.

 

“I’m glad! That laundry powder cost me about thirty dollars!” he said. “I send Rosalie to do the grocery shopping _once,_ and all hell breaks loose. Seriously!”

 

Esme laughed. He seemed like the nicest guy you could imagine, with his eyes and his smile…

 

So as she left at the end of the day, she felt a little guilty for checking over her shoulder to reassure herself he wasn’t pursuing her with a knife in his hand. 

 

Because as soon as she had stepped outside his influence, she realised that this man had real, dangerous, charismatic, eloquent, mesmeric, effortless… _charm._

 

Esme knew _exactly_ how dangerous that could be.

 

And that was the first night she dreamt of Carlisle Cullen.

 

She woke in a cold sweat, shaking.


	9. We've Heard Rumours...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some wolf action!
> 
> And also there may be some possible triggers here for anxiety and compulsion disorders so go easy any of you who have suffered from anything like that (just covering my ass here).
> 
> But, apart from that, hope you like the chapter.

 

It was Saturday morning. 

 

 _Saturday morning,_ Charlie thought groggily, rubbing his face with his hand as he lay in bed. _So why the hell is she up at the crack of dawn?_

 

He listened to the dulled tinkles and bangs of Esme _trying_ to be quiet as she bustled around the kitchen. 

 

At six AM. 

 

Beside him, Renée was sound asleep (as she could be through the _Apocalypse,_ Charlie often teased her) and, after peering at his wife affectionately, he decided not to wake her and face the Morning Monster alone.

 

He didn’t really know what the etiquette was when it came to telling your grown-up little sister to get her ass back to bed so he’d have to work with what he found and, as this was Esme, he was a little worried what that might be.

 

“Esme, talk us through it, gal,” he said as he arrived in the kitchen which was being _organised_ \- top to bottom.

 

“Oh, shit! Sorry, Charlie!” she said, jumping at the sound of his voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you!”

 

“I know,” he laughed. “You could have just used an air-horn for that.”

 

Esme smiled bravely but she looked rough with angry dark circles under her eyes and bitten lips. She was fully dressed.

 

“Do I want to know?” Chief Swan asked as he looked around what used to be his kitchen.

 

“I um…couldn’t sleep,” Esme admitted apologetically. “I…er…I had a bad dream…came down here and then I saw the plates weren’t washed and then…”

 

She shrugged guiltily around at the anti-mess.

 

And then this happened.

 

Charlie pursed his lips sympathetically all annoyance with his sister was dispelled immediately.

 

“Is it no better?” he asked. “The…anxiety, the compulsion?”

 

“It is,” she said, but wouldn’t meet his eye. “A little.”

 

“A little?”

 

He sighed. 

 

“Okay, so it’s a little better,” he said soothingly. “That’s good. But Es, it won’t get any better than that if you give in to the urge to do this…”

 

He gestured around the room.

 

“I was just cleaning…” Esme murmured quietly.

 

“I don’t think you were, Esme,” Charlie said sadly. “Not like this. And not at six in the morning.”

 

It broke his heart to see her hang her head like that, like it was shameful, like it was _her_ fault.

 

“Did…did something happen this week?” he asked more gently. “Something to…set you off again, a little?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

 

“Did…some _one_ upset you?”

 

She shook her head stubbornly, like a kid.

 

Charlie would have to use another tactic.

 

“Okay then,” he breathed. “In that case, could I ask a favour?”

 

“Uh-huh?”

 

“Would you mind making some food for Harry and Sue Clearwater?” he asked. “He likes fish fry.”

 

“Fish fry?” Esme repeated. “We may not have all the stuff…”

 

Inspiration struck.

 

“But the bigger supermarket opens at seven, though, right?” Esme asked eagerly.

 

“Yeah,” Charlie winced, but knew his plan was working when, much happier for an outlet for the restlessness, his sister put herself to work.

 

Esme cooked, put the kitchen back in order and waited for a polite time to arrive to call round on someone she didn’t know on a Saturday morning. As she waited, she bounced her leg up and down on the ball of her foot but that had been a habit of hers _before_ Charles, so she didn’t begrudge herself the small luxury.

 

At half past ten, she began the drive out to the reservation and, despite the drizzly summer weather, she could appreciate the beauty of the wilderness around her new home.

 

However, like most quiet roads near Forks, Esme thought disbelievingly, they were lined with teenagers. What were they all _doing?_

 

She pulled over near where the boy was walking, not wanting to scare him but recognising him by his gait. Since the sound of the engine was familiar, he turned to smile at Esme.

 

“Hey, Jacob, right?” she called. “Billy’s son?”

 

The youth nodded.

 

“Yeah, hi Esme,” he smiled, taking off his headphones politely.

 

“Hi! Would you like a ride somewhere?”

 

“Er…thanks,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way. Where are you heading?”

 

“I’m dropping some stuff off to Harry Clearwater for Charlie,” Esme told him.

 

Jacob’s face brightened.

 

“Well, in that case…” he said, taking Esme up on her offer and squeezing himself into the car. “Two birds with one stone - he’s over at my place with my dad.”

 

“Perfect, then!” Esme said. “Though you’ll have to direct me…”

 

They drove through the reservation and, as they did, Jacob filled Esme in on the La Push gossip, which comprised, on Esme’s part, of a lot of furrowed brows and wondering who Jared and Paul were.

 

“So are you in high school still?” Esme asked once she got a word in.

 

“Yeah, _still,”_ Jacob said, rolling his eyes. “For another _three years,_ I’m still a Freshman, I’m sixteen.”

 

Esme’s eyebrows flew up.

 

“You’re _sixteen?”_

 

Her eyes narrowed in playful suspicion.

 

_“Really?”_

 

Jacob chortled.

 

“I know, I’m kinda bigger than most kids my age,” he said, which was a bit of an understatement.

 

“Well you get yourself on the football team or the basketball team, at least,” Esme laughed. “You make me feel really small.”

 

“Esme, hate to break it to you,” Jacob said teasingly. “…But you _are_ pretty short. Just saying.”

 

“Glad to hear your eyes still work up there in the cloud blanket,” Esme shot back, enjoying the kind of innocent repartee she remembered from her own childhood.

 

Chuckling, Esme parked the car in front of Jacob’s house.

 

“Thanks Esme!” he said brightly. 

 

He loped ahead to wrench open his front door.

 

“And would you like an omelette?” he asked, suddenly remembering his manners.

 

“Perhaps not right _now,_ thank you, Jake,” Esme said to the boy, smiling fondly. “But that’s _very_ sweet of you to offer.”

 

He nodded understanding.

 

“DADI’MHOMEANDESME’SHERE!” Jacob yelled as he bounded off to make his eggs (‘ten at a time!’ Billy would complain to anyone who’d listen) while Esme introduced herself to Harry and Sue who were watching a baseball game on catchup in the living room.

 

It really was a lovely home, she thought. It felt safe.

 

“On Charlie’s instruction I brought you some fish fry,” Esme told them. “Minus most of the fry. Don’t want to _un-do_ all Dr Gerardy’s hard work.”

 

“Esme, you’re an _angel,”_ Sue said gratefully, accepting both the food and Esme as a work of goodness. “Thank _God_ someone’s looking out for your health, Harry, even if you aren’t!”

 

Harry shrugged.

 

“Esme!” Billy called, wheeling himself into the room. “Hope everything’s okay with the car?”

 

“Yeah, it’s running great,” Esme reassured him. “I’m just here to drop off some provisions.”

 

“Why don’t you stay for a while? Have a coffee?” Billy offered. “I’m sure Sue would be happy for some female company.”

 

“She’s desperate, actually,” Sue laughed, offering Esme her seat as she got up to make some coffee and check Jacob wasn’t burning the house down with the frying pan.

 

“How’re you settling in?” she called over her shoulder.

 

“Great,” Esme replied. “Everyone seems really nice.”

 

“It’s a nice town,” Billy said with a smile. “And I’m sure you’ll see a lot of it up at the hospital. How’s that going, by the way?”

 

“Good,” Esme said quickly. “It’s, y’know, fine. Made a few friends.”

 

Billy caught Harry’s eye as Mr Clearwater muted the TV.

 

“We…ah…heard you’re working with Dr Cullen…?” Billy continued delicately, half statement, half question.

 

“Um, yeah…I am.” 

 

Esme shrugged, wondering why she suddenly felt so interrogated.

 

“He’s nice,” she said neutrally.

 

Harry and Billy shared a look.

 

“Uh-oh,” Harry said with what could have been triumph. “Tell us _all_ about it.”

 

“He’s…really nice,” Esme repeated, she hoped more convincingly.

 

“That’s what most folks think,” Billy said darkly, surprising Esme with the seriousness of his tone. “Only _most,_ mind you.”

 

“Yes, I wasn’t too keen to hear he would have been the one cutting me open,” Harry said with a shiver. “I prayed to the _gods_ it wouldn’t be him and, luckily, I was answered.”

 

“You _prayed_ it wouldn’t be him?” Esme asked with a strange cold tingle on her skin at his resolute mistrust, and the fact he seemed to mean that quite literally. “But he’s a wonderful doctor from what I’ve heard.”

 

“Oh, he’s a wonderful _doctor,_ alright…” Billy said. “Just on the reservation we’ve heard…rumours…”

 

“Rumours?” Esme repeated.

 

Billy leaned forward in his chair.

 

“Did he appear…strange to you?” He asked. “Little different to other folk?”

 

Esme wondered if it were possible to articulate how ‘different to other folk’ she’d found him.

 

“Perhaps…well he was sick when I first met him and…” she laughed nervously. “…A little cranky.”

 

“I wonder how sick he was feeling when he killed his wife,” Harry said bitterly, without missing a beat. “Must have been pretty cranky then.”

 

“What?” Esme spluttered.

 

“We’ve heard rumours,” Billy repeated.

 

“Apparently,” Harry said, lowering his voice. “When they lived up in Alaska, _Mommy_ Cullen walked in on two of the kids trying to screw each other, and she kicked the son out for it and threatened to go to the police. And Daddy Cullen wasn’t too pleased about that.”

 

He dragged his finger across his neck.

 

“Man’s got a reputation to uphold, right?”

 

“That _cannot_ be true,” Esme said with a raised eyebrow and a pounding heart.

 

“Can’t it?” Billy said. “Does _anyone_ really know what goes on behind other people’s locked doors?”

 

Suddenly the room felt vey small, and very airless. Esme felt her head spinning.

 

“Excuse me, but I just remembered I have to go,” she said breathlessly, Sue’s coffee forgotten. 

 

She turned to Harry who saw blind fear in her eyes.

 

“I hope you feel better soon,” she offered bravely as she fled the house, ran to her car and drove away.

 

As soon as she was out of the reservation boundary, she pulled over and let the sobs come.

 

“Why?” she whispered angrily to herself as she wiped the tears from her face. 

 

Why was this happening again? She wasn’t _in_ any danger here! _God!_

 

However, it was as she breathed deeply in her car before driving home that she first caught the sensation of being _watched._ It didn’t go away.


	10. The Deer And The Doe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...in Twilight, I think the first thought Bella has when she meets Esme is that she's like Snow White. I thought I'd take that a little further...
> 
> Also, thank you for your comments and your support and to anyone who is still reading this. There's plenty more of the story to go ;)

 

The next two weeks’ activities at the hospital continued fairly similarly to Esme’s first, only Dr Cullen was present, which changed everything.

 

Some days Dr Cullen seemed wonderfully happy and his eyes shone gold, others they seemed dulled ever so slightly to more of an ochre. On those days Esme knew to tread carefully. 

 

None of her co-workers seemed to notice these fluctuations in the doctor’s manner but, after Charles, it was instinctive to Esme to notice things about changeable people, purely in the interest of self-preservation.

 

Thankfully, the coal-black never returned and as time went on Esme began to relax around the man.

 

A bit.

 

The anxiety still lingered. Ever since La Push and she had felt the invisible eyes on her back but, funnily enough, it was into the forest that Esme ventured to find solace. Nature had always be her haven, her safety and so at the weekend and after work, she would find the time to go walking, nature-watching. 

 

And Carlisle would go Esme-watching.

 

She was _fascinating._

 

It was with equal measures of shame and interest that Carlisle had followed her fresh trail into the woods the first time. Well-fed as he then was, he was fairly confident he would be able to resist the song of her blood, rather it was the addictive buzz of her presence that he craved, even if his remained unknown to her.

 

He would watch her from afar, he decided. Just to, y’know, make sure she was alright…

 

After a week of the same activity, Carlisle couldn’t lie to himself about his motives. He just wanted to see her. He wanted to know her more intimately then anyone else did and, what he did quickly learn, was that all wasn’t well.

 

Often, Esme seemed fine while she was aimlessly humming her way through the forest but other times she moved with tearful purpose. At first, Carlisle was afraid she was being chased but he soon came to realise that whatever Esme was running way from wasn’t something that could be seen. He wasn’t the only one with his demons.

 

Unwilling to reveal himself, Carlisle waited and didn’t envelop his Esme in a hug whenever one of her episodes of fear took over. He instead hoped that she could sense that she wasn’t alone, that she always had a friend nearby.

 

And, impossible though it would have been with human senses, sometimes Carlisle thought that Esme _did_ know.

 

Mostly though, she remained completely unguarded. Sometimes, her face would scrunch up in deep thought, leaving Carlisle wishing he could explore her mind like Edward could, others, her face would break into her enormous sunny smile and Carlisle’s heart would soar.

 

 _How_ he wanted to join her…

 

But the boundary between them was more than a few yards and a barrier of foliage, Carlisle knew it. The night that his mortality had been stolen from him, he had lost far more than that.

 

He wanted to weep.

 

However, it was on one much less melancholy, though extremely rainy day, that Carlisle found himself moved to dry tears.

 

He had been tracking Esme from a respectable distance away for nearly a mile when she stopped walking and the scientist settled down contentedly to observe. However, before he could enjoy his most guilty of pleasures, Carlisle’s head snapped around as he heard the pattering of impossibly fast feet coming towards him and smelled the distinctive warm honey smell of his first creation.

 

“Oh _bloody_ hell,” he muttered irritatedly, resigning himself to the boy’s interruption.

 

“Hey, Carlisle!” Edward said jovially, but so that only Carlisle’s sensitive ears would hear.

 

“Go away!” Carlisle snapped in an equally muted voice, a little ruffled that he had been caught spying on a lady, which wasn’t gentlemanly in the slightest.

 

Edward smirked.

 

“Funny, I believe you shouted at me once for trailing a human girl ‘like a fool’,” he replied jauntily. “How the tables have turned…”

 

“I said be quiet!” Carlisle hissed.

 

“No,” Edward chuckled. “You said ‘go away’.”

 

Carlisle sighed and returned to his vigil. Edward watched too as Esme picked up some stones, apparently identical, even with vampire eyesight, and discard all but one of them which she put in her pocket for reasons unknown.

 

Why? Carlisle thought. Why _that_ little stone? Why not the other ones?

 

“Er…something about it speaks to her, for some reason,” Edward explained, though finding Esme’s mind something of an enigma himself. “She really is very eccentric, isn’t she?”

 

 _“Isn’t_ she, though?” Carlisle murmured, misty-eyed.

 

He watched her scavenge a little longer before she picked up a particularly curly piece of fern and give a triumphant smile.

 

Carlisle thought his granite heart would melt.

 

“What is she thinking now?” Carlisle demanded of his companion who might as well make himself useful.

 

Edward turned to give Carlisle a raised-eyebrow.

 

“That she’s being followed by a three-hundred year old vampire who should really know better and desperately needs a proper hobby,” he said, dead-pan, before he grinned.

 

“And…” Edward trailed off, his face twisting as he caught some of Esme’s actual thoughts.

 

He took in a breath.

 

“Sorry, I can’t listen to that,” he said darkly, vanishing.

 

“Edward! What?” Carlisle hissed into the space his son had just vacated, but was forced to turn his attention back to the human when she sat down suddenly and started rocking, taking juddering and unsteady breaths.

 

“Esm…” Carlisle mouthed, battling with the need to help her with the need to stay hidden.

 

What if…what if she…she’s ill…O-or she’s going to _die?_ Carlisle thought with an irrational panic he had rarely experienced before.

 

He’d have to help her! He was a doctor for crying out loud!

 

However, the image he conjured in his mind of ‘helping her’ had him on bended knee trying to explain his condition and begging her to forgive him for it and love him as if her were any other man.

 

That wouldn’t do.

 

He took a deep breath and her perfume filled his lungs.

 

That wouldn’t do at all.

 

It was also with this breath that the vampire caught another scent.

 

He heard with it the fluttering of a mammalian heart and the pit-pat of hooves on damp soil.

 

 _Deer! Prey!_ The most vampiric part of Carlisle snarled excitedly.

 

However, the animal itself seemed to be hunting for something. Hesitantly, it loped into the glade where the woman was crying. She looked up, pleasantly surprised that the creature had chosen to join her rather than being completely gobsmacked as Carlisle was.

 

“Hello there!” Esme sniffed as the animal crept closer. “Aren’t you pretty? Sorry if I disturbed you. What have you been doing?”

 

The young deer wandered up to the human and looked at her for a moment.

 

“Well that’s lovely!” Esme said, extending her arm to the creature which, to Carlisle’s utter astonishment, butted her hand with it’s head, inviting touch.

 

Deer didn’t…they didn’t just…what?

 

Esme grinned and gave the young animal a good tickle behind the ears.

 

“Yes!” she laughed. “That’s what I thought!”

 

She continued to stoke the animal which settled itself down beside her.

 

Not for the first time, Carlisle wished for a different ability than the awful one he had been dealt - only now, he was very set on the idea of becoming an animal so that Esme might touch _him_ like that. Why _was_ the animal allowing itself to be touched like that? By a human?

 

As if to answer his question, the sun came out and Esme smiled to the sky as a twittering flock of birds burst from a nearby tree causing the woman to laugh in delight, a brilliant bubbly sound like a baby might make but in her deep and sophisticated timbre.

 

Carlisle shrank back into the darkness, hiding his skin from the darkness and his heart from the ocean of pain he could sense lapping at it’s borders.

 

Here, in a sopping wet forest in Forks, Washington, USA, was the most beautiful sight Dr Carlisle Cullen had ever seen in all his hundreds of years of life.

 

Better than the temples of Asia, the palaces of Europe, the sunsets of Africa and the rainforests of the Pacific. Better than a baby’s first cry and the mist in his mother’s eyes, the relief of a family that their relative would live and the joy of a life saved.

 

Better even than the love of  _God…_

 

…Was _Esme._

 

Carlisle lunged back into the shadows of his hiding place, stifling a sob with his hand.

 

He shook with silent cries as the clearing glittered with the sun’s golden light on the wet branches and Esme commanded the world around her. There was something about her…Something…else. Something _more._ Something he could never attain.

 

The wild animal that had so unusually approached the woman seemed to agree with Carlisle as it continued to watch her with the kind of expression the doctor thought he must have on his own face.

 

 _She’s beautiful,_ he thought in awe. _She is beauty. Esme is the beauty in the world. And I am the-_

 

Carlisle’s thoughts were cut off suddenly as the breeze picked up and the animal turned to look at the vampire’s hiding place, eyes wide in alarm.

 

“What?” Esme asked it, eyes widening too as she realised it must have sensed a danger she hadn’t.

 

She peered into the trees.

 

“Hel-hello?” Esme said, as loudly as she dared, scrambling messily to her feet.

 

Her heart rate increased.

 

Carlisle cowered back into the darkness.

 

“Is anyone…?”

 

As the deer bolted, Esme’s eyes darted around, looking in vain for whatever had spooked her new friend.

 

She looked ready to flee.

 

Carlisle gasped involuntarily as he felt the venom in his body fizz at her reaction. He was, after all, a predator.

 

“No, Esme,” he whispered desperately as he smelt the adrenaline in her blood. “Don’t run…”

 

His teeth started to ache as the air filled with the smells and sounds of a scared human meal. 

 

Carlisle felt the residual growls in his throat, the perfect memories of the thousands of animals he had killed over the years.

 

Scared animals in the dark forest.

 

Which had run.

 

“Please, no,” he whispered feeling instinct take over and her uniquely divine scent envelop him.

 

With one last panicked look at where Carlisle was hiding, Esme ran.


	11. The Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was really hard to write but I've finally won the battle so here it is for y'all to read.
> 
> I hope it's not too much, but it's imperative for this to happen to help the plot along.
> 
> :)

“Shit, shit!” Esme breathed as she barrelled over the wet earth, feeling her pursuer like a shiver behind her.

 

She ran as fast as she could through the forest - her life depended upon it.

 

She’d had experience with panic attacks before, of course she had, (thank you, Charles), and each seemed more like real peril than the last. Except _this_ time it was real.

 

This time she would die.

 

In the thick of the trees, the sun did very little to relieve the slipperiness of the rain and so Esme’s boots slid over the ground, sweaty as her own clammy palms.

 

She scrambled through the undergrowth, slashing at branches with her hands but barely feeling the sting for her fear.

 

It was only when her foot pulled on a tree root and she felt pain rip through it that she gave a cry of torment, though still tried to run.

 

By the time her ankle buckled under her and she fell, Esme was crying in earnest and, panicked, she turned her head to face attack.

 

Nobody arrived.

 

“Wha…?” Esme whispered to herself.

 

The invisible eyes had vanished, there was no tingle down her spine. Her shadow was nowhere to be seen.

 

She would have breathed a short sigh of relief had something worse not happened.

 

There was a violent rustle in the trees and a snap which sounded like an tree being flattened.

 

The sound emanated from maybe a hundred yards from where she stood and was followed by a piercing howl made by an _enormous_ pair of wolf lungs.

 

Dread washed over Esme, head to toe, like the seventh wave and she started to judder with a terror she had never felt outside of the Phoenix home.

 

A squeak escaped her as she tried to stumble to her feet, the right one trembling with injury.

 

The beast howled again, only for its hideous cry to be overlapped by another howl…to be overlapped by another…and another.

 

There were an entire _pack_ of the things on the forest.

 

Before Esme could pass out with fear, there came a second noise, a worse one, like a hissing viper.  

 

And that did it.

 

Whimpering, and not caring if any of the monsters heard her, Esme ran again, feeling her foot sting and crunch more and more with each desperate step.

 

“Help me, help me,” she sobbed, like a child, as she tried to see the path ahead of her through her tears.

 

Esme’s brain was so numb with adrenaline that it was mostly by chance that, at last she managed to break the tree line and end up somewhere at the end of her street.

 

Esme cried out loud with relief but carried on moving, agony buzzing like electricity up her right leg.

 

Feeling a little like the FBI, Esme rammed her weight against Charlie’s front door after she had wept her way up the steps and all but sprawled into her home.

 

The door had opened freely, luckily unlocked, and Esme slammed it behind her. She dead-bolted it, realising then that one of the other two must be home.

 

“Charlie? Renée?” she called horsely.

 

She paused, breathing ragged as she decided what to do next, hoping against hope that the snake monster and the wolves hadn’t seen where she had gone.

 

“Charlie?” Esme called, dragging herself down the hall with clenched teeth. “Renée?”

 

The silence was eerie.

 

“Charlie?” Esme repeated quietly, voice a small sob.

 

A draught hit Esme as she got to the kitchen. Her blood turned to lead in her veins. 

 

They had found her.

 

They were already here.

 

The back door was open.

 

Shuffling herself backwards, Esme reached for the knife rack and pulled one of them out, feeling a harrowing familiarity in the need to protect herself. At least she could arm herself this time.

 

Slowly, _slowly,_ Esme limped to the open door.

 

Taking a deep, and perhaps even her last, breath into her lungs, Esme stepped outside to see-

 

“RENÉE!” Esme sobbed, hobbling out to the woman who was knitting in one of the garden chairs. 

 

“Esme?” Renée said, surprised, trying to turn her enormous mass to see her. “Is everything alr-… Oh _Jesus!”_

 

The creature that stood where Esme should have been was sobbing, streaked with mud and tears, clothes ripped and brandishing one of Renée’s own filleting knives.

 

“You have to get inside!” Esme garbled staring wildly into the trees that served as a garden fence, where Esme could still hear the echoes of what had chased her.

 

She advanced upon Renée, who was more worried about the knife than any giant monsters.

 

“Esme drop the knife!” she said in a flurry of alarm.

 

“We need it!” Esme hissed, eyes darting across the trunks of the trees before yanking Renée up by the hand, (which was easier said than done seeing as she was so heavily pregnant), and dragging her friend towards the door. 

 

“Now! Please!” she wept. “They’re coming!”

 

“Esme…your foot!” Renée said in horror, eyes still trained on the knife in Esme’s other hand.

 

Esme didn’t care.

 

“Hurryhurryhurry!” Esme shouted.

 

She all but pushed Renée through the back door and slammed it shut, locking it with shaking hands. She then slid brokenly to the floor, crying.

 

“Esme!” Renée shrieked. “What the hell is going on?”

 

Esme just kept crying, great wracking sobs.

 

“Es, Essie,” Renée said, kneeling uncomfortably and slowly beside Esme who's eyes looked unfocused. “What happened in there?”

 

Esme gave a juddering shake of her head.

 

“Esme, give that to me, okay?” Renée asked gently and almost cried with relief as she smaller woman’s grip slackened on the knife handle so Renée could remove it.

 

“Thank you, Esme,” she said softly. “Now Es, tell me what happened.”

 

“W-wolves,” she whispered in reply.

 

“Wolves?” Renée repeated.

 

“Wolves, _huge_ wolves,” Esme panted. “And a _snake.”_

 

Renée peered out into the woods, hearing and seeing nothing. She pursed her lips.

 

“And they’re following me,” Esme said horsely. “They have been all week.”

 

 _“Following_ you?”

 

“Yes!” Esme gasped. “Are they out there right now?”

 

She jabbed a shaking finger at the garden behind the door.

 

The empty garden.

 

“No…Esme they’re not,” Renée said, a note of hysteria in her own voice. “Snakes don’t live anywhere near here and wolves would never come so close to town.”

 

“They…they did,” Esme said weakly as Renée turned to what she thought was the most pressing problem.

 

“Esme, we have to get that foot seen to,” she said, voice rising an octave. “W-we have to take you to the hospital.”

 

“No!” Esme shouted. “We can’t go outside! They’re waiting for me.”

 

“Esme,” Renée sighed sadly.

 

“You…you don’t believe me, do you?” Esme breathed, horrified, as comprehension dawned. “You think I’ve lost it.”

 

“No, I totally do believe you!” Renée lied, not knowing how to deal with Esme’s episode and perhaps even a little afraid of her sister-in-law. “So you…saw a wolf?”

 

“No, I didn’t see a wolf!” Esme snapped. “I _heard_ loads of wolves…and a snake! I was chased by a…by a _thing!”_

 

Renée bit her lip. She looked fairly tearful too.

 

There was a moment of silence as Renée considered her companion.

 

“Esme, I don’t know what to do,” Renée confessed at last, sounding much younger than usual. “I don’t know if I can look after you properly, like this.”

 

She gestured to Esme hopelessly.

 

“I don’t know how to help you. This is way beyond what the psychologist told us to expect.”

 

“I’m _not_ crazy!” Esme shouted, slamming her hand against the floor.

 

“Jesus,” Renée said under her breath.

 

Esme’s head fell into her little hands.

 

“Look, I think…maybe you need to see someone about this,” Renée said slowly. “I’m serious. See a professional.”

 

Esme started to shake her head. She was shivering.

 

“Esme?”

 

“At least…at least can you call Charlie?” Esme said in a small voice, peeking up at Renée. “And ask him to keep everyone out of the woods?”

 

She looked up at Renée beseechingly.

 

“Renée, please just do this for me,” Esme begged. “I can’t bear the thought of anyone else getting hurt.”

 

“Okay,” Renée said, thinking that Charlie might know what to do about his sister now she’d gone psycho. “Es, you just take some deep breaths, alright? You’re safe here and I’ll get help.”

 

Leaving Esme, wide-eyed, to quiver prettily like a little Victorian doll, Renée heaved herself to her feet and went into the living room to make her distress call.

 

“C’mon Charlie, pick up pick up pick up!” she chanted, crushing the phone to her forehead as after the twelfth ring it went to voicemail.

 

His mobile was the same.

 

“No answer?” Esme asked, worried, from her heap on the floor.

 

“No,” she said. “He’s probably on patrol.”

 

Renée shuffled back into the kitchen.

 

“Es, we have to take you to the hospital,” she said in her best ‘mom voice’.

 

“No…” Esme moaned.

 

“Yes,” Renée told her sternly. “And Dr Cullen or somebody can get you put back together.”

 

Esme started to cry again.

 

 

 

***

 

 

Renée, who many would say drove like a maniac at the best of times, floored it to the hospital with her sobbing emergency. However, when they got there, it seemed pandemonium had already taken root.

 

The mystery of Charlie’s not answering his phone was solved quite satisfactorily by the flock of police cars and ambulances littering the back entrance to the hospital.

 

The chief himself looked taut as he spoke to one of the medics, though his face twisted into surprise as his wife’s car pulled up wonkily in one of the few free spaces nearby.

 

“Renée?” he called, as she struggled to raise herself and her bump out of the car.

 

 Esme lunged forward to put the parking break on, which she had forgotten.

 

“Is it the baby?” he asked urgently.

 

“No, it’s Esme,” Renée whispered quickly. “She says she was chased by a wolf, like…something _happened_ in the woods. I think she might be having another, y’know…”

 

Charlie’s eyes widened and he dashed towards his sister.

 

“Esme!” he half-yelled. “Are you okay? Did you see what happened?”

 

Before Esme could answer, those close enough to overhear were swarming towards her.

 

“Chief’s got a witness!” a nearby officer hollered.

 

“What happening?” Renée asked Charlie frantically, as Esme was removed from the car by a sea of people.

 

“Animal attack in the woods,” he said grimly, as someone shone a light in Esme’s popping eyes. “A bunch of kids. It was…”

 

He turned towards the ambulances, which hadn’t in the end been needed.

 

“…It was a slaughter.”

 


	12. Blood On Soil

It was Chris Newton who was the hero of the hour. 

 

Gallantly, batting away the police, he escorted his patient to the private x-ray room to see to her ankle.

 

“Esme,” he said kindly, retracting his hand from her shoulder when she flinched away involuntarily. “It looks like you’ve had quite a shock, but you’ll be alright. We’ll sort you out.”

 

Esme nodded blankly, wincing only when he eased off her hiking boot and pressed an ice-pack to her ankle.

 

“Kay, then…” he said calmly, squinting at the injury which was swelling quite impressively. “So I’d say that’s a nasty sprain, not broken, but we’ll get you x-rayed to be on the safe side…”

 

“May have helped if I didn’t run on it,” Esme said, still juddering with shivers.

 

“Yes,” Chris said seriously. “But I’m very glad you did.”

 

“The…the _kids…”_ Esme stammered quietly with a horrible image of Jacob or Dr Cullen’s children in her mind, all of whom seemed to enjoy wandering around in the wilderness. “Who…?”

 

“College-age campers from out of town,” Chris told her, a little thickly. “They came into our store yesterday and bought a new tripod for their camera. They were going to take pictures for some photography course.”

 

Esme remembered that Chris and his wife Rachel owned the camping store in town.

 

“They were only just older than my son,” Chris whispered.

 

“Did any of them…?” Esme began.

 

“All six of them were killed,” he replied, looking resolutely at Esme’s x-ray.

 

Chris dealt better with the living than the dead.

 

“Oh my _God…”_ Esme gasped, realising how real the threat had been.

 

“Yeah, Dr Cullen’s doing an autopsy right now,” he said. “He says it was wolves.”

 

_Dr Cullen…?_

 

“Yes…” Esme agreed. “It was…”

 

She daren’t mention the snake she thought she’d heard for fear of an even longer stay in hospital.

 

“And what’s this…?” Chris asked, pleased to change the subject, as he looked at the x-ray, tracing the faint imperfection in Esme’s bone. “Looks like an old break.”

 

“Yeah…” Esme confirmed weakly. “I barely remember it to be honest, I was, like, seven.”

 

“Well, you’ve certainly been in the wars,” Chris smiled.

 

“That I have,” Esme replied, hiding a hysterical laugh while her mind started to whirr rather strangely.

 

She remembered the broken leg. She…how did she do it? She fell out of a tree. Yes, that was it…Her mom took her to the hospital while Charlie was at their grandmother’s house and then…and then…

 

Esme got a really weird feeling as she remembered sitting in the hospital having her leg painfully re-set. She felt like she had forgotten something vitally important.

 

“Oh, here, Esme, take these,” Chris offered, handing Esme some pain pills, a glass if water and a small bag of skittles as he mistook her confusion for pain (which was becoming a lot more prominent as her adrenaline levels dropped). “In no particular order.”

 

He grinned.

 

“Thanks,” Esme replied as there was a tapping on the door and a policeman’s head appeared around it.

 

“Excuse me,” he said. “We really need Miss Swan to give a statement.”

 

“I’m still in the process of delivering medical care,” Chris told him flatly, shielding his trembling patient.

 

The officer puffed out his cheeks in a tired gesture.

 

“Chris, come on, man,” he sighed. “We’ve got dead kids on our hands. We need the statement.”

 

Realising that was true, Chris turned to Esme.

 

“You’ll have to talk to the police,” he said to her. “They need to hear what you told Renée. In _your_ words.”

 

“I know…” Esme conceded as Charlie opened the door.

 

“Es!” he cried and Chris moved back to let the chief wrap Esme shamelessly in a hug. “Esme! Renée’s _so_ sorry she didn’t believe you!”

 

“S’okay…I…guess I wasn’t making much sense…”

 

Another officer sidled into the room - apparently there really was no escape now.

 

“Es,” Charlie continued, looking relieved his sister wasn't permanently damaged but still stressed as hell . “If you’d just tell Joe what you saw…”

 

And she did. For the most part.

 

She was walking a little way out of town. She heard wolves. She get spooked. She ran. She tripped. She got up again. She ran. She made it home. Renée took her to the hospital. 

 

Yes, that was everything, and no she didn’t _see_ the wolves.

 

Drained, Esme turned to her brother as the other officers left with Chris who was relaying to them what he’d told Esme.

 

“Have you…called the families yet?” Esme asked Charlie cautiously as the voices had faded down the corridor.

 

“About to,” he said, letting out a huff and looking utterly, utterly broken. “Esme, Renée will take you home, but I’ll be out late, okay?”

 

Esme nodded, struggling to imagine  how hard Charlie’s task would be - calling six sets of parents and telling them their babies were never coming home.

 

***

 

Later, after Renée had driven Esme home and gushed her apologies before collapsing, exhausted, into bed, Esme was curled up in a blanket at the kitchen table waiting for Charlie to stagger back through the door. Besides not being able to sleep herself, Esme didn’t think he should be alone after the day he’d had.

 

“Charlie!” Esme cried as she heard his key jingle in the lock.

 

“Esme? You’re still up?” came his voice.

 

“Yes, in the kitchen,” she called and waited for his heavy footsteps to meet her.

 

He folded her into an awkward hug before sitting down opposite her.

 

He buried his dark-haired head in his hands.

 

“Oh, _Charlie…”_

 

The chief had tears in his brown eyes.

 

“I…It’s my job…to protect this town…” he choked. “And everyone in it…”

 

He took a juddering breath.

 

“I failed them,” he whispered. “Like I failed you. Like I keep failing you.”

 

“No! Charlie!” Esme hissed, hand darting out to grasp his. “There was _nothing_ you could have done about the wolves.”

 

“I…wasn’t just taking about wolves,” he said slowly.

 

Esme took in a sharp breath, knowing where the conversation was going and that it really wasn’t the right time for it.

 

“Charlie, I…don’t think I want to talk about this,” she said in a small voice.

 

“We need to,” he said back.

 

There was a moment of silence.

 

“When she got really sick,” Charlie began soberly. “Mom asked me to look after you, she said: ‘Charlie, you look after your sister’.”

 

He shook his head with a sad chuckle.

 

 _“God,_ if she could see us…”

 

Esme pursed her lips sadly.

 

“No, Charlie. You’re the best police chief and the best big brother in the world,” Esme told him resolutely. “And I won’t hear a word to the contrary.”

 

He smiled gratefully.

 

“And you’re the best little sis,” he smiled at her. “And soon the best auntie.”

 

He sighed.

 

“I _wish_ I could think that my little girl will grow up in a safe town,” Charlie said desolately. “And I wish I could tell everyone they're safe, but I can’t, because they’re not.”

 

“Because of the wolves?” Esme asked.

 

Charlie looked agitated for a moment, as if he were deciding whether or not to say something.

 

“I don’t think it was wolves,” he admitted.

 

“Huh?” Esme asked. “Why?”

 

“I…don’t know,” Charlie said with a crease between his brows. “Call it police instinct, but the whole thing…it’s too…”

 

His forehead furrowed.

 

“Something isn’t right,” he finished at last.

 

“Well…couldn’t you check the camera?” Esme wondered. “…Maybe they got a picture of what attacked them? It’s unlikely, but…”

 

“There was no camera, Esme.”

 

She stopped.

 

“What?” 

 

“I tell you this in complete confidentiality,” Charlie said, dropping his voice unconsciously. “But the camera wasn’t there when we first showed up on the scene. Not a single one of them had a camera.”

 

He looked at her.

 

“But…they were photographers…” Esme whispered.

 

“Exactly,” Charlie said, finger jabbing the air for emphasis. “Rachel showed us the footage of them with it in the store and, unless they dropped it in a trash can, which I doubt, or threw it into the bushes, someone must have taken it. And I think it was the same someone who killed those kids.”

 

Esme gasped.

 

“A _person?”_ she spluttered. “But I heard the wolves!”

 

Charlie was shaking his head.

 

“Wolves kill for two reasons,” he told her. “To protect themselves and to feed. This was _waaaay_ off book, if you ask me. I was talking to Billy, to see if anything had happened on the rez, and he agreed with me.”

 

He sighed in frustration.

 

“I just wish I knew what we were dealing with here,” he muttered.

 

Esme did too.

 

Since she went to bed with fear tight in her gut, it was really no surprise to find herself in her little Phoenix kitchen when she finally fell asleep.

 

She turned slowly to the table, knowing somehow that Charles would be leering at her there but as soon as she caught sight of him, he slumped forwards, smile still on his face.

 

Not drunk, but stone dead.

 

Esme shivered as the light dulled and the cream coloured walls writhed into thick fir branches and she was standing in the twilight of the forest. She knew what had killed Charles.

 

“Esme,” the culprit said, eyes black as coal, expression as deep as sin.

 

He reached his hand to her, an invitation, though it could have easily have been an order.

 

A flock of crows flew overhead and the forest melted like tar into a bleak and stormy stretch of coastline. 

 

Esme knew what always came next, the worst part.

 

“No,” she wept and her feet carried her further to the edge. “Please. Carlisle, no. Don’t make me do this again.”

 

Dr Cullen’s dream-representation stepped closer.

 

“You asked for this, Esme,” he crooned lovingly. “It’s what you have to do, remember?”

 

“No,” she whispered.

 

“We were supposed to be together,” he explained patiently. “You have to.”

 

“No!”

 

But then the wind was whipping at her hair, sea-spray drenching an old lacy nightgown that belonged in a different century and Esme was finally woken, tears on her face, by the awful sensation of falling.

 

The shadow at her window fell away.

 


	13. The Wolves Descend

At Forks Hospital, a sprained ankle and a near-death experience earned you five days off, which took Esme to the weekend.

 

During this time, Esme slept little but thought an awful lot and finally decided that behaving as if everything were normal was the best course of action.

 

Since her ankle was still too painful for her to drive, Renée dropped Esme off at work on Monday morning, waving her sister-in-law off to, metaphorically, face the wolves a second time.

 

Not even through the revolving door which led to the lobby of the hospital, Esme was set upon by voraciously nosy townsfolk who wanted to know all about the hikers’ deaths that everyone seemed to have found out that Esme nearly witnessed.

 

Answering as briefly as she could, Esme hobbled to the office she shared with Dr Cullen (whenever he breezed in, that is) and thought she was safe until Josie showed up to insist upon having Esme wheeled around in a wheelchair which was mortifying considering how much better her ankle was - she could walk on it now.

 

 _At least now I_ ** _know_** _everyone’s looking at me,_ Esme thought as Christina wheeled her into the staffroom at the end of her working day. _And I’m nearly home_ …

 

But not yet, it seemed, because there was news on the case and, this being Forks, everyone wanted to know so they could spread it to their friends like chicken pox.

 

Esme sat, as dignified as she could, in the wheelchair she did not strictly need and waited for someone to come up to speak.

 

When Dr Cullen stood up (and, of _course_ it had to be him, Esme thought), she had to stifle a little gasp at the ache in her chest that bloomed when she caught sight of him.

 

After nine days of not having seen him…not that she was counting, Esme had forgotten how… _perfect_ he was. He was an artists dream, and nightmare, because that kind of beauty just couldn’t be translated onto paper. His… _aura_ was beautiful.

 

But that wasn’t the point here, today his aura was _broken._

 

Esme felt herself sag in the chair, overcome with sympathy.

 

The doctor’s eyes weren’t too dark, but he looked utterly exhausted. And sad, so terribly sad.

 

“Oh doctor Cullen, you poor thing,” Esme whispered under her breath, a lightly as a feather but his head snapped up to meet her gaze as if he’d heard her.

 

Seizing the moment, Esme tried to apologise with her eyes for whatever had made him so sad.

 

He needed a hug, and propriety be damned, Esme was determined to deliver one.

 

“Es, your foot, hun,” Christina whispered, gently tugging back down which is when Esme realised she had risen to her feet.

 

She sat, mortified and blushing.

 

“Oh, yeah,” she mumbled, horrified that she had been fully prepared to embrace the doctor at the front of the room full of people.

 

 _Nice, Esme,_ she thought venomously. _Nice. Losing your mind publicly too, now. Very nice._

 

“Just a quick update before most of us head home,” the doctor said in his melodic way, seeming very comfortable under the scrutiny of so many people. “The young people have been returned home to their families for burial.”

 

He took a breath.

 

“This means all the forensic work has been concluded, and I can share with you that it _was_ wolves who killed those poor children.”

 

The room waited with rapt attention.

 

“Now I know there have been other rumours circulating about the incident,” he continued stoically. “But rest assured that I, and the police, are confident in our assessment.”

 

He eyed the room like a stern headmaster.

 

“Furthermore, I’d like to ask you please to warn your patients, friends and families to stay out of the woods as the wolves as they are still suspected to be in the area.”

 

The gaze came to rest on Esme.

 

“Also, this has been a very traumatic experience for all involved,” he added. “So I would advise you not to pester anyone for information regarding the day itself.”

 

 _Thank you,_ Esme said silently with a smile.

 

"And if you would," the doctor said solemnly. "A moment of silence, please for Morgan Palmer, Charlotte Ashton, Kurt Browne, Lucas Martinez, Dean Kramer and Kayla Winchester. ”

 

The time passed heavily.

 

“Thank you,” he said at last. “I hope these young people, and their families will be in your prayers ad they are in mine.”

 

Esme was a little surprised that Dr Cullen was religious, but it seemed extremely fitting somehow. Instead of bristling with indication that the doctor was pushing his own religion on all of them a little, it felt…strangely right to Esme. And besides, she didn’t have long to ponder this before he began his beeline towards her.

 

“Esme!” he called

 

“Dr Cullen,” Esme said back as the seats around her cleared.

 

He frowned as he took in the bandage on her leg and, as she had both hoped and feared, the inevitable arm was extended for her to take. 

 

“Here, forget this,” he said, tapping the wheelchair with a chuckle, and, always the gentleman, magically disposed of everything in his hands immediately to help her.

 

“Thank you,” Esme whispered fugitively. “I thought that one might have been overkill slightly.”

 

He laughed softly.

 

“Perhaps a little. But that does look nasty.”

 

His lips pursed as he scrutinised the ankle.

 

“Could have been nastier,” Esme said quietly, watching the man’s face crumble.

 

 _Oh great, Esme! Now you’ve upset him!_ She thought angrily, cursing herself.

 

“Hey, hey,” Esme said to the doctor, resisting the urge to fling her arms around him. “There was nothing you could have done.”

 

“There’s always more I could have done,” Dr Cullen said bleakly.

 

Esme thought he meant that medically.

 

“I’m sure the families are very grateful that you tried to save them,” Esme said softly. “And you handled that wonderfully in there. I mean it.”

 

“My father was a Pastor,” Dr Cullen said quietly with a bland smile. “I suppose death has always been an affinity of mine.”

 

Esme stopped walking and frowned. To cover the strangeness of what he had said, Dr Cullen laughed merrily and readjusted his hold on his precious cargo.

 

“Not what you want to hear from your doctor, is it?” he laughed gently, giving Esme the value of one of his rare full-Watt smiles.

 

_Oh God, he’s beautiful…_

 

“You…You’re helping the police, right?” Esme said, sloppily changing the subject so he’d perhaps stop laughing and she could force the blush out of her cheeks.

 

Credit to his character, again Dr Cullen looked genuinely harrowed by the deaths of the young people, and Esme felt sorry for bringing it back up.

 

“Yes…And, Esme, please, _please_ don’t go back into the forest,” he implored. “It churns my stomach to think how close it came to being you.”

 

“You too,” Esme said. “I’ve seen your kids out by the forest before, you keep ‘em safe.”

 

The doctor looked down.

 

“And…Also, Esme,” he said, almost apologetically. “…I have to ask…”

 

He spun her gently so she was forced to look him in the eye.

 

“Did you hear or see anything that day you didn’t tell the police?”

 

At his words, Esme’s flight or fight kicked in. She literally felt the fear wash over her under his scrutiny.

 

She knew she was swimming dangerous waters. Very dangerous. Her ankle prickled.

 

_Lie…_

 

“I-I told them everything…” Esme stuttered, sounding much more defensive than was polite.

 

“I wasn’t insinuating anything different,” the doctor said gently, peering down at her kindly under his lashes. “It’s just possible that you remember something now you didn’t at the time.”

 

Esme’s heart was pounding.

 

He couldn’t mean the _snake,_ right? How the hell would he know?

 

“I told them everything,” Esme said, meeting his eyes unblinkingly.

 

_Please believe me, please believe me…_

 

He held her gaze effortlessly and, again, she flushed under the intensity.

 

 _Tell me…_ whispered his eyes. _Trust me…_

 

_Kiss me…_

 

Wait, what?

 

He looked away first, clearing his throat and the spell was broken.

 

“Well, as long as we know,” he said amicably, though a little roughly.

 

For the rest of the slow march through the hospital to the parking lot they didn’t speak. The silence was shattered only when they made it outside.

 

“Hey…you’re not _driving_ with that, are you?” the doctor asked, suddenly. “Do you need a ride?”

 

Dr Cullen tossed his head to the very shiny black Mercedes which must have been his own car. I mean, evidently it _was_ his because it was the only car in the row that no bird had dared to shit on, and the doctor didn’t seem like the sort of man to have birds shitting on his car.

 

Nervous, Esme actually grinned at that thought.

 

 _God! Where’s Edward when you need him?_ Carlisle thought frantically, peered at Esme in fascination, curiosity gnawing ruthlessly at him, as it always did around this remarkable woman.

 

“No, some friends are picking me up,” Esme said, trying not to laugh. “But thank you.”

 

“Well, I’m here if you need me,” the doctor answered pleasantly, but distantly, retreating respectfully into his professional cocoon.

 

Esme thought she may have hurt his feelings and was shocked that someone like Dr Cullen would assume that she had been laughing at _him._

 

“And that’s much appreciated, Dr Cullen,” she said as warmly as she could to make up for her rudeness.

 

He still had that horrible sadness across his shoulders. Somehow he could be so much more impressively sad than anyone else Esme knew. She thought her heart might break.

 

“So…you’re leaving the hospital for once?” Esme said jokingly to cover the anguish that the silence had left.

 

“Yes, my son Jasper suffers from ME,” the doctor said, a crease between his brows. “And he’s had another relapse.”

 

“Oh my goodness!” Esme burst. “Poor… poor _all of you!_ Can he still graduate on time?”

 

“Yes, he can do his school work from home but he won’t actually be going to school for the rest of the year,” the doctor said resolutely.

 

“Well, I’m very sorry to hear that, Dr Cullen,” Esme said with genuine sympathy on her face.

 

Carlisle gave a stiff smile while guilt attempted to shatter it’s smooth surface.

 

“Yes, well, he’s trying very hard to work around it,” he said carefully. “And I daresay we’re used to it. Though it can cause…problems.”

 

He looked down for a moment.

 

“It’s always something of a shock when he has a relapse,” he admitted at last.

 

“So I can imagine,” Esme said soothingly.

 

_No, no you can’t._

 

“But, ah! Could these be the friends of yours?” Dr Cullen asked lightly, as a mini-van driven by Sue Clearwater and containing Billy, Jacob, Harry Clearwater and a number of other La Push people Esme only knew by sight pulled into the parking lot.

 

“Er, yeah,” Esme said with a furrowed brow, wondering why half the reservation had come to pick her up…and were now glaring at her.

 

“Well, shall we?” the doctor asked, choosing to loop his arm around Esme’s waist to allow her to hobble better.

 

Her heart fluttered.

 

She thought she almost saw his smile widen when this happened.

 

As the pair came closer, Billy, Jacob, Sue, Harry and somebody Esme thought was called Sam got out of the van to greet her.

 

“Very friendly, aren’t they?” Dr Cullen chuckled against her ear.

 

The glares got deeper.

 

Esme gave a brave wave to Billy.

 

“Hello Esme,” he said in his gravelly voice.

 

“Hi Billy, hi guys,” Esme said shyly, finding herself wishing that Dr Cullen would let go of her so she could return her heart to it’s normal rhythm. “Um, this is Dr Cullen and Dr Cullen this is Billy Black.”

 

“We’ve met,” Billy said stiffly, eyeing the doctor with…loathing? Fear? Alarm?

 

Esme was surprised that the contempt for the man beside her was of the type that would leave Billy’s living room, but apparently this was very much the case.

 

“I…didn’t know you and Esme were so well acquainted,” Dr Cullen continued smoothly and her stomach leapt as she felt his fingers dig a little harder into her side.

 

“Well…I think it’s a good thing we are, don’t you?” Billy said with a surprising weight on every one of his words.

 

Esme frowned and looked from one man to the other, finding this a very strange thing to say, thought obviously the comment hit it’s mark - Dr Cullen’s face was set like marble. Not a happy man.

 

“I was just walking Esme over, seeing as she’s hurt,” the doctor explained, attentive as always. “She got injured.”

 

He locked eyes with the Quillute man.

 

“Running away from a wolf.”

 

Billy looked up from his seat to meet the stare of the taller man with a dignity Esme didn’t think she could manage under the circumstances, having just learnt the power of the doctor’s gaze.

 

“Better injured than _dead,”_ Billy said carefully. “As I’m sure the families of those poor teenagers would say.”

 

“Well, wolves can be dangerous creatures, can’t they, Esme?” the doctor said with a breathy laugh, hugging Esme a little tighter to him.

 

She didn’t trust herself to respond, which did not go unnoticed.

 

“I think Esme would like to go home now,” Billy said measuredly, eyes narrowing at the pale hand cupping her little waist.

 

“Of course,” Dr Cullen said politely. “It’s been a long day.”

 

“It’s been a long week,” the young man, Sam, said, with no hint of friendliness as Dr Cullen released Esme.

 

Reluctantly, that is.

 

The doctor nodded his charming ascent.

 

“Yes, so I’d better be getting home,” he said smoothly.

 

“That you should,” Harry Clearwater rumbled to the accompaniment of the doctor’s hollow chuckle.

 

 _What the hell is going on?_ Esme thought. _They seriously_ ** _do_** _believe he murdered his wife?_

 

“This town’s a changing place, Cullen,” Billy said warningly.

 

“That it is,” the doctor replied charmingly

 

“The end of an era, you might say,” the Quillute man continued.

 

“Well,” the doctor said as he strode off to his car. “I’m sure I’ll survive.”

 

There were audible grumbles from all the La Push visitors at this retort.

 

“Give our best to your _son,_ Dr Cullen,” Sue Clearwater called, with an acidity Esme would never have expected from her. “He’s in out thoughts.”

 

The doctor smiled jovially.

 

“And all the best to _your_ little ones, Sue,” he said, gracefully lowering himself into his car. “And don’t forget _your_ thoughts are always in ours.”

 

The tension hitched up another notch at this very bizarre comment.

 

“See you later, Esme,” Dr Cullen called as he started the engine, turning to give her the benefit of another blaze of his eye-contact.

 

Esme thought of the nighttime when she would no doubt dream of him and, oddly, felt like that was what he was referring to, rather than work the next day.

 

“Bye,” she said uncertainly as the Mercedes sped away.

 

“Esme!” Sue burst suddenly, as soon as the doctor had vanished and the taut atmosphere had mostly dissipated. _“Are you alright?”_

 

“Yeah…I’m…fine..” Esme said, feeling very puzzled. “What…just happened?”

 

“A discussion between old friends,” Billy said darkly.

 

“Did he hurt you, Esme?” Sam asked, looking completely serious about his concern.

 

“What, no!” Esme insisted, which was true.

 

He hadn't hurt her at all, which was the problem. The doctor’s having actually put his hands on Esme had turned a weird fascination with him into something…else.

 

The sudden flush in her cheeks was taken to suggest that she was lying.

 

“Guy’s got one hell of of a grip, huh?” Harry said brightly, trying to lighten the mood a little as Sue helped Esme into the van.

 

“Yeah,” Esme laughed breathily.

 

He really did.

 


	14. Cheetos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for continuing to follow this!

Monday became Tuesday, which blurred into Wednesday and Thursday then Friday and Esme could contain herself no longer.

 

Now her ankle was feeling a lot better, the urge to be outside was so great, she thought it was going to crush her. Nature was calling and, since Charlie had her pretty much an house arrest since her almost run-in with the wolves, she was unable to answer.

 

She sighed, and instead turned to painting which was another love of hers. She liked to take inspiration from nature and from great old buildings she had seen in history books - something from the land of Colosseums and temples, glass mosaics and great nude marble statues.

 

And it was at this point that Esme began to think that would be very much like what would live under Dr Cullen’s neatly pressed shirt.

 

She laughed at loud at herself.

 

She needed to be outside.

 

By Saturday lunchtime, the anxiety was back. Being confined to a house always did that to her. 

 

Instead of Renée’s papered walls, they began to look cream, the curtains became brown, rather than yellow. And the floor…there was dirt on the floor…

 

Charles _hated_ dirt on his floor…

 

 _Help,_ she realised as her heart started to beat frantically and the ringing started in her ears. _She needed help._  

 

And, immediately, one face swam into her mind.

 

“Hey Billy!” Esme said as chirpily as she could manage despite being so breathless, hearing his gravelly voice on the other end of the line. “It’s Esme. Sorry to disturb you.”

 

“Esme!’ he replied, sounding pleased she had called. “What can I do for you?”

 

Esme paused. Maybe this was a stupid idea. The last thing Billy wanted to be doing on his Saturday afternoon was entertaining her.

 

_Charles always watched the game on Saturday afternoon. Except the time he went out with a friend, and came home drunk and-_

 

“Um…I wondered if I might come down to the rez today and see you,” Esme rushed bravely, clutching the phone a little tighter. “I-I mean, if you’re not too busy…I know you’ve seen quite a lot of me this week so if you’d rather just-”

 

“Esme, we’d love to see you!” he chuckled warmly, though a little warily, as though he knew Esme was crying. “Come on down! Jacob has some friends round so it won’t be quiet, but I’m sure we can shout over the x-box.”

 

Esme smiled despite herself.

 

“Thank you Billy, really,” she laughed nervously.

 

“Esme, it’s our treat,” he said softly. “Do you need someone to pick you up?”

 

Esme gave her ankle an experimental roll and didn’t find it too painful at all.

 

“Um, no…you’ve done so much already, I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way…”

 

“Only if you’re sure…” Billy said.

 

“Absolutely!” Esme replied and on the other side of the line Billy grinned, imagining the dimples bursting into bloom through the tears. “See you in half an hour?”

 

Grabbing her coat and bag, and taking some deep, deep breaths, Esme limped out to her car, having left a note for Charlie telling him where she had gone.

 

Gingerly, Esme tried her foot on the pedals and, not finding it too uncomfortable, began the drive out to La Push.

 

Despite the cool cloudy summer weather, Esme drove with the window open, letting the scents of the forest fill the car. Wet pine needles, damp earth, stagnant water, mint and eucalyptus…

 

 _Weird,_ she thought, wondering where that scent had come from, but the inky shadows between the trees on either side of the road held no clue.

 

She shifted in the seat, feeling the little flips of anxiety in her stomach increase. She tried to breathe them away, all the while feeling the invisible eyes on her, searing holes in her car so the exercise didn’t prove all that effective.

 

She sighed and carried on to La Push, driving a little faster now towards the one place the eyes didn’t follow her.

 

Arriving at Billy’s little house, she felt immediately much more composed and walked up to ring the bell.

 

Before she could make her presence known, she was met by a cacophony of barking and the goofy grin of Jacob through the glass of the door.

 

“Hey Esme!” he said as he opened the door. “How’re you - Hey, Cheetos! Down!”

 

Cheetos, Jacob’s ginger English shepherd was going berserk in the porch, excited to have a visitor.

 

_“Whoa there!”_

 

“Oh he’s _lovely!”_ Esme exclaimed excitedly, dutifully dropping her bag to smother the dog with kisses.

 

Jacob gave a bark of laughter.

 

“Esme, Cheetos,” he said with mock formality. “Cheetos, Esme.”

 

Cheetos was writhing on the floor manically with his tail slashing at the wooden hallway floor as Esme rubbed his tummy.

 

“Nice to meet you, Cheetos!” Esme giggled as the dog spasmed with joy, having discovered such a wonderful new friend.

 

Withdrawing her hand, Cheetos sprung up and tried to leap into her arms.

 

“Whoa, _jees,_ you’re a big fella,” Esme puffed, letting him down again. “Bit too heavy for me, sweetie.”

 

“Cheetos, leave the lady alone, will ya?” said Billy’s voice from around the corner. “Sorry Esme, he’s not usually like this.”

 

Jacob laughed.

 

“No, he’s not,” the teen told her eagerly. “I think he’s _actually_ in love with you.”

 

“Well, he’s very handsome, aren’t you, Cheetos?” Esme said with a grin as the dog began barking again.

 

Another young man appeared around the door to the living room.

 

“Jake, what’d you do to the fucking dog, man?” he chortled before he caught sight of Esme and blushed with embarrassment.

 

“Oh, er sorry,” he said grimacing his apology.

 

“No, that’s fine,” Esme laughed. 

 

“This is Embry,” Jacob said. “And Quill’s in the living room…”

 

He raised his voice.

 

“Eating all the chips while we’re not looking.”

 

 _“So_ not true!” came an indignant voice through a full mouth of food and everyone laughed.

 

“Come in, Esme,” Billy invited warmly. “Let me get you something.”

 

Taking gentlemanly incentive, Cheetos grandly led Esme into the kitchen (or rather _his_ kitchen, as Billy and Jacob would often joke).

 

It was a small, simple room full of mismatched furniture and childhood memories and Esme felt increasingly at ease.

 

“Coffee?” Billy asked.

 

“Yes pl- Just a second Cheetos, honey - Yes please, Billy,” Esme said gratefully, settling herself down.

 

“So, how’re holding up?” Billy asked as he busied himself with the two cups. “It’s nice to see y-”

 

“OH MY GOD! _Quill!_ Stop stealing my kills, man! You’re being a _legit_ piece of shit right now!”

 

There came a thump, which was obviously some kind of retribution, followed by several guffaws of laughter.

 

_“Asshole!”_

 

“Boys,” Billy called over his shoulder into the living room. “Lets keep it down a little, okay?”

 

He chuckled as the dog came to lay against Esme’s foot with a blissful huff.

 

“Sorry about them,” he said.

 

“It’s fine,” she said with a small smile that Billy correctly interpreted as sadness.

 

Esme swilled the coffee around in her cup for a moment.

 

“It’s nice, actually.”

 

The two of them descended into silence.

 

“So…how’s the rumour mill treating you?” Billy asked at last, trying to make light of his concern.

 

“Not too bad, actually,” Esme admitted. “Um…doctor Cullen kinda told everyone at the hospital to shut up about it.”

 

“I’m sure he did,” Billy said a little _too_ lightly.

 

Esme’s ‘dangerous waters’ alarm was sounding, however there was something playing on her mind so she ploughed forwards.

 

“Charlie told me…you didn’t think it was _wolves_ that killed those kids…?” 

 

“No,” Billy said slowly. “It absolutely wasn’t.”

 

“He said…”

 

Esme wondered how to put it, and whether or not she was breaching Charlie’s trust by telling Billy this, though she suspected, as Charlie’s best friend, Billy would be in the know already.

 

“He said he thought it might have been a human,” she whispered. “A murder.”

 

Billy nodded sagely.

 

“And it’s possible,” he said. “Personally I think it was an animal. But lines get a little blurred when it comes to killing, don’t they? When _does_ a man become a beast?”

 

Esme’s brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of what he’d said. And funnily enough, it _did_ make perfect sense.

 

“Right…” Esme murmured, half to herself.

 

“You seem…thoughtful…” Billy probed.

 

Esme looked at Billy. She trusted this man, which was bizarre, seeing as she’d sworn never to do so again after Charles, but she did. It felt like there was an open channel between them - like they’d grown up together or something. He’d help her. He’d believe her.

 

“Yeah…” she whispered. “See…that day in the woods-”

 

“JAKE! YOU _DOUCHEBAG!”_

 

_“BOYS!”_

 

The three friends, weak with hapless laughter, staggered into the kitchen.

 

“Dad, can you please banish Embry from the house?” Jacob said seriously while the other two boys wept with laughter. “He’s a bad influence on me.”

 

“And he upsets my fragile constitution,” added Quill thickly, earning another round of almost girlish giggles from the trio.

 

Embry went to swat him, but instead his remarkably long and gangly arms caught a box of cereal on the countertop, which Jacob lunged to save, in turn overturning a chair.

 

“Alright, okay,” Billy said in his ‘tribe leader’ voice. “That’s enough visits from the candy and soda fairy now. I think maybe you should walk it off. Go walk Cheetos.”

 

Cheetos sprang to his feet, glad to be part of the conversation.

 

“Walk, buddy?” Jacob asked the dog. 

 

Cheetos wove between his legs happily and hen trotted off to fetch the lead from his bed, which he then dutifully deposited in _Esme’s_ lap.

 

“Nope, we’ve been ditched,” Quill said with a sigh. “I see how it it, Cheetos. Go for the ladies. Shameless flirt.”

 

“No integrity at all,” Embry tutted. “But, you know, I’m not even angry…”

 

“…Just disappointed,” Quill and Jacob finished in unison, smirking.

 

“Don’t listen to them, Cheetos,” Esme said with playful kindness, sharing a smile with the boys. “I would _love_ to walk you. Would you like to come with me, little guy?”

 

Cheetos started wagging furiously in response.

 

Jacob and his father shared a look.

 

“But…what about your ankle?” Billy asked, sounding strangely urgent.

 

“Pretty much better,” she answered. “I heal up quickly.”

 

 _That_ she had discovered over the past few years.

 

“Well, then…yes? I… _think_ that would be okay?” Jacob said uncertainly, communicating silently with Billy.

 

“Yes,” Billy asserted. “But take care, Esme. And stick to the beach.”

 

Thrilled, Esme called Cheetos to heal and he trotted proudly next to his companion, without a lead. 

 

“Never seen him act like that,” Billy said quietly as the Quillutes watched the two figures retreat.

 

Jacob scowled.

 

“You really think Cheetos is gonna do her any good if _he’s_ after her,” Quill asked worriedly.

 

Billy sighed heavily.

 

“Not really,” he admitted. “But it might give her a better chance. Cheetos won’t lead her anywhere he’s been recently. Besides, he won’t come on the reservation…”

 

Jacob didn’t look so sure.


	15. Kiss Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The humour in this chapter is childish, I know. Sorry.
> 
> And I'm trying to get the romance going a bit more so there's some fluff in this chapter. I hope you like it.

Esme just _loved_ dogs and they loved her, just like kids did (it was a common occurrence for random young children to come up to Esme in the street and tell her about their day). In the same way, even the most fearsome of muzzled dogs would pad up to her and demand a cuddle after growling at Charles like he was the anti-christ (open for dispute). It was a gift, her mother always said. Rather an ironic one, now, but a gift none the less.

 

Esme and Cheetos made rather slow but content progress down the beach since he needed constant reassurance that he was a _good boy_ and Esme wanted to rub him behind his tangly ears.

 

“So…what shall we talk about?” she asked him conversationally as they meandered across the pebbles. “Do you like sausages?”

 

He wagged his tail furiously and Esme realised her mistake.

 

“Oh! Sorry sweetie, no, I don’t have any with me!” she rushed. “I shouldn’t have said the ’s-word’ should I?”

 

Cheetos looked a little miffed that he had been tricked, and then remembered that the speaker was _Esme,_ his wonderful new friend, and instantly perked up again.

 

“But we can play fetch, if you’d like?” Esme offered kindly.

 

She selected a piece of driftwood watched intently by a very intense pair of doggy eyes as his feet skittered below him in preparation.

 

“Will this do?”

 

Suddenly, Cheetos froze, and the playfulness slid off him. His ears cocked up a little and he was trembling with alertness.

 

“Hey…Cheetos? What’s the matter, buddy?” Esme asked.

 

The dog had started to growl, eyeing the cliffs, and Esme turned her gaze to the spot that Cheetos was so interested in. She saw nothing.

 

“What is it?” Esme asked, feeling the familiar trickle of dread through her veins. 

 

She got down to eye-level with the dog.

 

“Cheetos,” she whispered seriously. “Is it the wolves?”

 

Her blood ran a little colder.

 

“Is it the _thing?”_

 

The dog considered this, staring past her and taking in great nostrilfuls of sea air.

 

He obviously didn’t like what he smelt because for the first time in Esme’s life, an animal ran away from her.

 

The dog had _bolted._

 

“CHEETOS!” Esme yelled as the dog tore down the beach away from the cliff.

 

She was so shocked it took a moment for the nightmarishness of the situation to register. 

 

“Shit!” she gasped as she scrambled back up the beach, ankle protesting. “Shit _shit!”_

 

She fished her phone out of her pocket and held it for a moment. She knew she ought to go for help but she couldn’t bear the thought of telling Billy she’d lost his dog.

 

“Oh Jesus…CHEETOS!” she shouted.

 

Silence.

 

_“CHEETOS!”_

 

This time, she heard a distant yelp.

 

“Oh my God, Cheetos,” she breathed, eyes wide with horror as she ran as fast as she could towards the sound of the noise.

 

 _Don’t…_ whispered the ghost of self-preservation. _Turn back. Tell Billy._

 

But if Cheetos was in trouble, there wasn’t time. He could be drowning!

 

 _Or being eaten by the snake monster,_ Esme’s subconscious whispered.

 

Gritting her teeth with pain, Esme hobbled up the path leading from the beach to the patch of forest that marked the reservation boundary, where the sound had come from.

 

“Cheetos!”

 

Breathing hard, she swept her eyes along the ground and found a set of doggy prints leading, as Esme’s luck would have it, into the trees.

 

Steeling herself, Esme barrelled into the undergrowth.

 

“Cheetos!” she shouted.

 

Her voice seemed muted somewhat. Dead, lacking any echo.

 

It was eerie.

 

Realising suddenly what was causing the silence, Esme turned her face to see the pine branches above her completely still. There wasn’t a breath of wind.

 

She exhaled slowly with a throb in her ankle and her ears full of deafening silence.

 

“Cheetos?” she whispered, taking a tentative step.

 

Nothing.

 

Feeling close to tears, she knew what she had to do. She fumbled with her phone to call Billy and-

 

“Aw no! No, no, no,” Esme whispered, seeing she had no signal. “No, no, no…”

 

She should go back. She should-

 

There was a snap behind her and Esme whirled around, whirled around and froze dead, heart pounding, ears ringing, vision throbbing.

 

Her number was up.

 

There was a soft hissing sound as the enormous wolf body wove itself stealthily through the tree branches and the muzzle became visible.

 

Esme didn’t scream. There was no point, really. She was injured, she was unarmed and she was alone. And maybe there was a part of her, a dangerous part for sure, that wasn’t as afraid of monsters as she should be.

 

…Not to say she _wasn’t_ afraid - she was terrified.

 

The wolf watched the human for a moment and its doleful brown eyes gazed down at her with a distinct kind of familiar intelligence. He, and Esme got the distance impression it was a ‘he’, didn’t seem angry, or hungry, or particularly bloodthirsty for that matter.

 

Yes, this was the creature that had just killed six teenagers. But…it was just a dog, really? Wasn’t it?

 

Feeling bizarrely at ease, and less afraid of the beast as she was of most human beings, Esme straitened her posture.

 

“Hello,” she whispered to the wolf which was a reddish brown colour. Striking, in fact, though nothing in comparison to it’s enormous size.

 

He let out a growl and Esme drew back, but the creature didn’t seem all that interested in her, in fact, he seemed almost distracted.

 

“You’re afraid,” Esme whispered with sudden inspiration, feeling immediately sorry for the creature, her own peril forgotten. “Please don’t be. I won’t hurt you.”

 

The wolf sniffed, ears cocked eyeing the trees. Then, with and almost apologetic whine, the creature ran, leaving Esme to face whatever had spooked it all alone.

 

Silence.

 

She wanted the huge wolf back as darkness began creeping in and the forest throbbed with a kind of electric terror.

 

“He-hello?” she said.

 

The darkness came closer.

 

“Cheetos?” she called uncertainly, and jumped when she was answered.

 

“Esme?”

 

She gave a shriek as she turned to face the source of the voice.

 

“Dr Cullen,” she gasped when she recognised her ambusher. “You scared me!”

 

“You scared _me!”_ he replied, looking strangely angry. “There are wolves in the woods, why on Earth are you out here?”

 

“I was…I was looking for a dog…Cheetos,” she said, sounding pathetic even to her own ears.

 

Dr Cullen’s face softened.

 

“Beat you to it,” he smiled. “He’s in my car. Poor fellow was terrified. Here, we’d better get somewhere safe.”

 

Dr Cullen offered his elbow to Esme, which she accepted with a shaking arm.

 

He helped Esme limp out of the trees to his car where curled up on the back seat was a very sleepy dog.

 

“Thank God! Cheetos!” Esme half-wept as she saw him.

 

She peered at the dog who didn’t look well.

 

“Not cool, buster!” she said, hooking the lead shakily around his neck. “Yeah, you bet, and it’s not coming off!”

 

She turned to the hero of the hour.

 

“Thank you, Dr Cullen!” she gushed.

 

“Carlisle, please,” he said with a small smile, gold eyes glittering like their metallic counterpart. “We’re not at work.”

 

“Carlisle,” Esme said softly, finding those eyes rather hard to look away from. 

 

Reluctantly, she turned back to the dog.

 

“Er, medical expert,” she asked. “What’s…wrong with him?”

 

“I gave him a little something,” Dr Cullen, sorry, _Carlisle_ said. “I hope you don't mind. It was just to calm him down enough to get him in the car.”

 

“Oh…right, well…” Esme said, a little surprised. “I guess that’s okay…? It’s just he’s not my dog, so…”

 

“But he’s a nice little fella, isn’t he,” Carlisle said, glancing the sorry quivering mass of ginger fur.

 

“Yes,” Esme said, wondering how Carlisle didn’t manage to get any of the fur on the pristine upholstery of his other car seats.

 

“It’s Billy Black’s dog, isn’t it?” he asked delicately, but as though he already knew.

 

“Is…is that a problem?” Esme asked back, squinting in rather a fetching way as she looked up at the taller man.

 

Carlisle knew exactly what she was referring to.

 

“Not for me,” he reassured her. “It’s not the poor doggy’s fault he’s fought up in a family feud.”

 

“Is that what it is?”

 

Carlisle dropped his voice to imitate billy.

 

“The Cullens don’t come here,” he said spookily, then laughed.

 

Esme felt herself somehow desperate to reciprocate - he had one of _those_ laughs.

 

“It’s ridiculous, really,” he smiled. “The Cullen family used to live here many years ago and …words between my family and the Quillutes were exchanged…”

 

He gave Esme a look to indicate that they weren’t particularly friendly words.

 

“Oh, I see.”

 

“Mmm, yeah,” Carlisle said, looking thoughtful. “I hoped that as a new generation, we could put it all behind us.”

 

He shrugged.

 

“Apparently not.”

 

Esme frowned.

 

“I thought you said you were from England?” she asked him.

 

Carlisle grinned.

 

“You’re a sharp one, Miss Swan,” he said and after that she was too busy trying in vain to hide her blush that she didn’t notice he didn’t answer her question. 

 

To help her face return to it’s normal pallor, Esme looked around at where they were - near some rock pools.

 

“What…what were you doing out here?” she asked the doctor, which was something she’d only just wondered.

 

“I’m fishing,” he replied brightly.

 

_“Fishing?”_

 

Esme eyed the doctor warily.

 

Now she got a good look at him, there was something strangely indecent, Esme thought, about seeing the doctor with his pant legs and sleeves rolled up, wearing a pair of _suspender braces,_ of all things, looking like a little 1940s boy on his summer holidays.

 

He looked…good.

 

He looked _really_ good.

 

…Even seizing a pink fishing on a stick net which looked like it had been stolen from a seven-year-old girl and standing next to a matching bucket teeming with little black fish.

 

“Wow,” Esme said, genuinely surprised. “How…did you get those?”

 

Carlisle grinned and gave the fishing net a cheerful wave.

 

“With _that?”_

 

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked, the smile ruining the mock hurt in his voice.

 

Esme was gobsmacked.

 

“How long have you _been_ here?” she asked, swatting a mosquito away from her face.

 

“A…while,” the doctor admitted.

 

He shrugged.

 

“’S m’ day off,” he said, smoothing down his hair in an example of that mesmerising habit of his.

 

“So…you’ve been here…all day…catching little fish,” Esme recapped. “What do you do with them?”

 

“I…er…chuck ‘um back, I guess,” he said casually. “It’s pretty dumb, I know,”

 

“No, no…!” Esme cried, not wanting to offend the man who just found Cheetos. “If it’s your thing…”

 

Carlisle grinned, and stood there grinning for a little while longer, just thinking about how pretty Esme looked until his eyes began to follow the mosquito flying towards her neck…settling itself and bi-

 

He shot forwards and Esme gasped as the doctor suddenly had the thing between his fingers.

 

“Wha…?” she breathed, shocked.

 

“Sorry,” he murmured from his new place right beside her. “There was…there was a bug on you.”

 

“Well…thanks,” Esme said, feeling strangely pleased with this, albeit a little weird, act of attentiveness. 

 

At work he often seemed rather distant, and it was only now she realised how much that…disappointed her?

 

Of course it disappointed her. She dreamed about him every night and thought about him rather a lot every day.

 

She smiled and her dimples got a little peek at Carlisle.

 

He got a very good look at them.

 

 _Why?_ he silently asked his God. _Why? Why the dimples on top of everything?_

 

“Do you want a lift back to the reservation?” the Carlisle asked politely, trying to stop himself from committing some kind of horrific social _faux pas_ like ripping all his clothes off or asking Esme to marry him.

 

Did I? Esme thought.

 

Based upon the spectacle in the hospital parking lot, she reckoned Dr Cullen might get lynched if he came on Quillute land. 

 

“Um…no thanks,” she said, despite the sting in her ankle getting worse and worse. “I’ll walk. Very kind of you, though.”

 

“Walk?” Carlisle asked. “With that ankle? And…carry the dog I presume?”

 

He tutted while he smiled.

 

“‘Fraid I can’t let you do that, Esme, you’ll make it worse. I’ll drive you.”

 

Esme looked unsure, wondering how he made her feel so awkward for refusing.

 

He grinned.

 

“Doctor’s orders,” he said in that mesmerising voice that haunted her so often un the realm of unconsciousness.

 

Esme looked up into his swimming, impossibly beautiful, golden eyes.

 

 _Kiss him,_ hissed the devil on her shoulder.

 

Instead, she chose the lesser evil and got into his car, the door closed being her with a satisfied clap and the dog giving a whine.

 

The drive was short and Esme found herself chatting absently about the nature documentaries she’d just found on catchup (and thought she was probably boring the man rigid before remembering that he went _rock-pooling_ in his spare time).

 

“I have a deep appreciation for the natural world,” he said without a hint of irony, which Esme found extremely endearing.

 

However, despite their newfound comfort, Esme found herself tensing as she crossed the line of the reservation, which Carlisle failed to miss.

 

“It’s alright,” he said, extremely earnestly, but with a slight twitch to the side of his mouth. “I think by tribe law they have to put me on trial before they can execute me, and, since I believe it’s Bingo club tonight, that gives me at least a day to escape.”

 

Despite her friendship with Billy, traitorously, Esme laughed. Giggled, might have been more accurate of a description.

 

“What’s wrong with Bingo?” she grinned and suppressed the urge to nudge him playfully.

 

“Nothing!” Carlisle laughed looking a little _overly_ sincere, his face crinkling up like a mischievous imp. “I _love_ Bingo! I’m just saying it’s on tonight!”

 

“Hmmm,” Esme said, playing along, eyes narrowing. “All too innocent, Carlisle. Besides, there’s a sort of Midsummer bonfire on tonight. Bingo’s cancelled.”

 

 _“WHAT!”_ Carlisle cried in mock outrage, bracing his arms against the steering wheel as if he had been electrocuted. “They can’t do that! _Whatever_ shall we do?”

 

Esme laughed so much she tipped her head back into the seat which was something she couldn’t remember ever doing before.

 

“Hey, and if Cheetos ever gets a sibling, it has to be ‘Bingo’,” Carlisle continued, desperate to nurse Esme’s dimples into permanence like two bright little flames.

 

He noticed one was deeper than the other which made his heart melt, for reasons unclear.

 

“Yup,” Esme said. “That way I can yell ‘Bingo’ down the beach, not ‘Cheetos’ and feel like even _more_ of an ass.”

 

“Don’t worry, I’ve had worse than that,” Carlisle said, shaking his head.

 

He chuckled for a moment.

 

“I once had a patient, no lie, who’s name was Michael Hunt, (pardon the confidentiality infringement but you’re technically hospital staff). Michael Hunt.”

 

Esme’s brow furrowed for a moment.

 

“Michael…Mike…”

 

She covered her mouth.

 

“Oh my God! _No!”_

 

“Yes,” he chortled. “I…one day when I was running a clinic I wasn’t paying enough attention, and I called “Mike Hunt, please” into the waiting room.”

 

Esme was shaking with laugher.

 

“You _didn’t!”_

 

“Yes I did. My son, Emmett, insists that was one of the best days of his life,” he said while his passenger shook with mirth in her seat. “I was amazed I wasn’t dismissed from the hospital. I heard a few patients were rather offended.”

 

Esme couldn’t breathe for laughter.

 

“Yeah, exactly,” he continued. “And then, later that day, one of the gynaecologists discreetly approached me, and asked whether-” 

 

“Stop!” Esme said, choking with tears in her eyes as the car pulled up outside Billy Black’s house. “Please stop! I can’t actually breathe!”

 

She squirmed in her seat, fumbling with her belt because her arms were trembling with laughter.

 

“Oh, and here’s my welcome party,” Carlisle said, with an eye-roll in his voice, as Billy Black, Quil and Embry left the house.

 

Jacob was nowhere to be seen.

 

“You know, maybe _I_ should start attending La Push Bingo,” Carlisle said thoughtfully with a grin. “See if they’d ever let me win.”

 

“Just so long as there’s no outbursts about your privates every time you get a full row, Dr Cullen,” Esme said, as straight-faced and sternly as she could as she opened her door.

 

Carlisle spluttered with laugher and, weakly, got out of the car to extract Cheetos.

 

“Hello Esme,” Billy said.

 

“Hi…hi Billy,” Esme said, grinning and still breathless with laughter. “I just…just met Dr Cullen by the beach…”

 

She lapsed into another fit of giggles.

 

“Dr Cullen. We didn’t think we’d see you around here,” Billy said stiffly in his dignified timbre. “That was very good of you to bring Esme back safe.”

 

“Yes, well, we can’t have _my secretary_ getting hurt, can we?” Carlisle replied, with the edge he used with the Quillutes, as he deposited the drowsy Cheetos by the feet of a horrified Embry.

 

“No,” Billy said. “We can’t.”

 

“Well, see you on Monday, Esme,” the doctor said cheerfully, still nursing a few chuckles of his own.

 

“Bye!” she called, entranced, after him. “And thank you!”

 

Contrary to Esme’s elation, the dog looked like it wanted to _weep_ with relief when the doctor sped away. Hell, the others did too.

 

Billy and the two teens shared a look.

 

Dr Cullen meant business now humans had been killed and the treaty had been broken. The doctor had come to prove both the reservation boundary was meaningless to him and that the chief’s sister certainly wasn’t. 

 

But there was nothing they could do to stop him.


	16. Dīs Pater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Plot development!
> 
> I really hope you like this chapter which was quite difficult to write but extremely important. (Yeah, Esme's hears the word 'vampire', so it's only a matter of time.)
> 
> The other theme I introduce here is non-canon with regards to vampires, but is really a huge part of the story, and had been in a veiled way, from the start, so I hope you appreciate it!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading!

 

After Esme had explained, apologetically, what had happened with Cheetos, Billy and Jacob, (who had reappeared after Dr Cullen had gone, looking rather spooked), reassured her that it was fine. 

 

They also urged her to stay for dinner and the tribe bonfire, which was the last thing Esme expected after taking such bad care of their dog.

 

“Really?” Esme asked gruffly, after swallowing a mouthful of spaghetti that was slightly too big. “But the Quillute stories are your special thing, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

 

“You aren’t intruding, Esme, not in the slightest,” Billy said, sharing a look with Harry who had appeared with Sue, conveniently close to dinner time, and both sat with their plates on their lap. “We think it will be…good for you to hear them.”

 

Uncharacteristically, Esme didn’t just agree to this out of politeness. She felt strangely…hyper. And for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, sitting around a campfire in the freezing cold, surrounded by semi-strangers that she didn’t belong with sounded…fun.

 

Then again, she did keep laughing with the remembered feeling of butterflies still in her stomach from earlier. She may have even been, dare she say it, happy.

 

Hey, she’d had a nice chat with a giant wolf, then had a laughing fit with the man she could have been ever so slightly in love with.

 

At that thought, her bubble of happiness burst somewhat. Falling in love with a handsome, single, recently-widowed doctor after she moves to a new town to forget her past lover may be a cliché for some, but it was a disaster for her. Though he was a strange exclusion to the fear she now held for most men, she still knew that it would take a huge effort to let Carlisle close.

 

Sometimes, the thought of getting to know him better thrilled her. Other times she was terrified - completely convinced that he was just like Charles. That they were all the same…

 

“Esme?” Billy asked kindly.

 

She shook herself out of her thoughts.

 

“Sorry Billy, I was in my own world,” she laughed.

 

“You seem a little _off_ tonight Esme, is anything the matter?” he wondered.

 

“No,” she said quietly. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

 

Billy didn’t look convinced but didn’t want to probe the issue further while they had company.

 

“Well, I’ve called Charlie,” the Quillute continued. “He knows you’re gonna be back late after the bonfire.”

 

“Oh! Thank you! I forgot…” Esme said absently, looking down to fiddle with her fingernails, and after that, she was very, very quiet. Spookily so.

 

As such, Billy made a point of seating her opposite him around the fire pit, where Paul and Embry were swearing over a box of matches, so he could keep an eye on her.

 

The circle gradually filled up with more people who introduced themselves politely to Esme, already seeming to know who she was and why she was there, and soon, thanks to Jacob’s innovation (a bit of gasoline), the fire was burning merrily and the evening could begin.

 

“Good evening, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters” Billy greeted his tribespeople fondly. “I welcome you all to sit beneath the solstice sky.”

 

He looked up at the sky, which was characteristically grey but under his scrutiny seemed to lighten, just a little, eager to prove that yes, it _was_ the summer solstice.

 

“On this night,” he continued with dignified poise. “We share our stories, both with the younger generation-”

 

(Beside him, a young teen, Sue and Harry’s son Seth, beamed. Clearly it was his first time hearing the stories).

 

“And with new friends…” Billy finished, shooting Esme a quick shadow of a smile, which quickly folded back into his somber story-telling face.

 

He let the silence settle for a moment while he collected himself. Strangely enough, Esme _could_ believe that the spirits of Billy’s ancestors were listening too, such was the atmosphere that the man was able to create.

 

“Tonight, we begin with a story, which is perhaps not a happy one,” Billy told them. “This is the story of the wolves, the Cold Ones…”

 

He paused for dramatic effect.

 

“…And _Death.”_

 

Esme wasn’t the only one who was leaning forward eagerly on the driftwood log she was perched on. All eyes were on Jacob’s father and he wielded the attention expertly.

 

“In Quillute legend,” he said clearly. “Our tribe has the astonishing ability to exchange our bodies at will with those…of _wolves.”_

 

_Wolves?_

 

Esme leaned closer, remembering the russet beast from earlier.

 

“The wolf warriors protected the tribe. They were noble, fierce and loyal and vowed _never_ to harm a mortal.”

 

Billy turned to Esme.

 

“They swore an oath not to kill innocent men and women and particularly _children.”_

 

_Like the kids in the woods…_

 

“The only creatures that the wolves _would_ kill…were the Cold Ones…”

 

At Billy’s words, a hiss went around the fire and Esme could feel the genuine hatred in the air for whatever these creatures were.

 

“For those of you who don’t know…” Billy continued, eyes flickered momentarily to Esme again.

 

“…The Cold ones are a very ancient people, if people they may be. They are pale as the moon, strong as mountains and quicker than the wind. They cannot die unless they are ripped to pieces…and _burnt._ The wolves, along with others of their kind, were the only beings who could kill Cold Ones.”

 

Billy took a deep breath.

 

“The Cold ones,” he carried on. “Whom the modern man or woman might call a ‘vampire’, were savages and would kill indiscriminately to sate their unquenchable thirst for human blood….or just for fun…leaving mounds of bodies in their terrible wake.”

 

The sight of the ambulances and young death flashed in front of Esme’s eyes before Billy spoke again.

 

“For many years, the wolf magic of mind, body and spirit, was passed down from father to son…”

 

His eyes flickered around the circle.

 

“Or…less commonly, mother to daughter…”

 

A few people shifted awkwardly.

 

“…And the wolves fought bravely,” Billy announced with pride. “And, as such, each time another blood drinker came, it was killed, and the tribe lived on.”

 

The other elders around the fire looked proud too.

 

“Now, As you’ve been told,” Billy continued, now in a slightly different tone. “The Cold Ones have their own magic. Some can start fires with their fingertips, some pick the words out of your head or make things fly without touching them but one by one they were defeated by the wolves until one day, a new coven of blood-drinkers came.”

 

Billy took a deep breath.

 

“The leader of the wolves strode fourth to defeat the leader of the blood drinkers,” he said urgently. “But, before the tribe’s very eyes their chief _rotted alive_ and his body turned to waste, his bones to dust. This particular blood drinker had a gift more formidable than the wolves could have anticipated. He could will sickness upon the living and turn his own kind to ash with only his hatred. The crops withered, livestock choked on their own blood and the grass blackened under his feet.”

 

The man looked genuinely disgusted.

 

“Nobody could defeat him, not even the kings of his own kind who were very powerful, and so,” he said, almost in a sigh. “For the first time…the wolves were forced to surrender.”

 

He bowed his head as if he personally had been the one to concede defeat to the monster.

 

“The blood drinker that came to our tribe, to this town, had been foretold for centuries and known by many names in many cultures: by the Romans as Pluto, by the Ancient Egyptians as Anubis and by the ancient Greeks…”

 

Billy stared into the fire.

 

_“Hades.”_

 

The only sound was the crackling of the fire and the whispering of the trees which sounded as if they were hushing each other to listen.

 

“Nowadays,” Billy Black sighed. “For this blood-drinker is still… _very_ much alive, His followers call Him Dīs Pater. In English, “the Rich Father’.”

 

Harry Clearwater smirked. Esme didn’t know why.

 

“He is also known commonly by another name, a name all of you might very well know, a name that may surprise you…”

 

Billy drew himself up taller - the crescendo was coming.

 

“He is the Grim Reaper - the Lord of Death and He lusts after human flesh, while decorating Himself with a life of wealth, beauty and charm. When we die, it is He who snatches the souls from our bodies and keeps them. Sometimes, He desires someone who isn’t yet dead, and when this happens…”

 

Billy glared at the flames.

 

“…He will see to it they soon are,” he said slowly. “And his endurance reminds us, everyday, of an inescapable fact: when He decides to come for you…”

 

He looked Esme in the eye.

 

 _“Nobody_ can escape Death.”

 

As Billy said the last words Esme felt dread wash over her and her head start to spin. She felt the combination of weeks’ worth of paranoia crash down on her, filling her up until she couldn’t breathe.

 

“Excuse me I need some air,” she gasped, although already outside, and scrambled away from the fire, dashing away back towards Billy and Jacob’s house.

 

Reaching their front steps, she collapsed down on shaking legs and breathed in lungful after lungful of the clean reservation air.

 

What she had just heard _meant_ something. 

 

 _“Help me, help me,”_ she whispered as she tore her fingers through her hair, so absorbed in her dread that she jumped when she heard footsteps behind her.

 

“Got the chills?” chuckled a familiar voice.

 

“Jacob!” she gasped. “Oh, it’s just you. Thank God!”

 

Jacob handed Esme a blanket and a cup of soup not really knowing what else to do for distraught women twice his age.

 

“My dad’s the best story teller on the rez, everyone says so,” the youth informed her proudly giving her what he hoped was a comforting pat on the shoulder.

 

“I see why…” Esme shivered, as she pulled the blanket around her. “Thank you, Jacob.”

 

He pursed his lips.

 

“Um…should I go fetch my dad?”

 

“Please, if you could,” Esme said gratefully. “And I’m sorry about this.”

 

Jacob shrugged.

 

“If you don’t feel good, you don’t feel good,” he said easily. “I just hope it wasn’t my spaghetti…”

 

“No Jacob, this is something else,” Esme said darkly. “But thank you,”

 

Jacob gave her a parting smile and as he retreated, the breeze blew Billy’s words back to her.

 

_…Pale as the moon…The Rich Father…Wealth, beauty and charm…Blood-drinker…Nobody can escape death…_

 

“Es, you okay? You look kinda unwell,” Billy said softly, as he wheeled himself towards her.

 

“Yeah, that…that just hit hard,” Esme said weakly. “I…I really felt that one.”

 

“All to do with the delivery,” Billy joked.

 

Esme gave a sniff.

 

“I’m sorry I’ve ruined your evening by freaking out,” she whispered.

 

“You didn’t ruin _anything,_ Esme, you couldn’t,” Billy said in that magical voice of his that made you believe his stories.

 

Esme turned to him and saw his face open with acceptance. It was all to much and she started to cry.

 

“I-I’m sorry,” Esme said in a small voice as she quivered with sobs.

 

“Hey…hey, hey, hey, Esme, no need to apologise.”

 

She cried harder, and Billy let her, knowing some things just had to run their course. 

 

When the tears had ebbed, somewhat, he continued.

 

“Look Esme,” he said. “He didn’t give me the specifics, but Charlie told me you had a hard time back in Arizona. It’s really none of my business, but if you ever needed to talk, we’re here for you.”

 

Esme believed him.

 

“Actually,” she said before her social awareness stopped her. “Well, yeah…I…”

 

How could she even begin this one?

 

“I just feel so paranoid all the time,” she whispered. “Like something’s… _following_ me.”

 

She shook her head at how crazy that sounded, and lapsed into tears again.

 

“Esme,” Billy rumbled in his soothing tone. “You are Charlie’s sister. You have a lot of friends in this town. And if anything or any _one_ is bothering you, you can tell us.”

 

He huffed a laugh.

 

“I may be in a wheelchair but I can still throw one hell of a right-hook.”

 

Esme gave him a watery smile.

 

“I’m sorry I seem to be always here,” she said thickly, nose running like a child. “I just…I don’t know. I feel safe here.”

 

“I’m glad,” Billy told her with feeling, producing a tissue seemingly from nowhere.

 

He pursed his lips for a moment.

 

“So…this stalker of yours…that I believe in, by the way,” Billy added quickly. “…Do you have any suspicions as to who it might be?”

 

“I’m not being stalked by a person,” Esme said, letting out a taut breath. “It feels more like…a… _thing._ Just…there in the corner of my eye sometimes.”

 

“A ‘thing’? Like a _bear?”_ Billy asked her, leaning forward interestedly.

 

“No like…an absence of something,” Esme told him, scrunching up her face to help her find the right words. “Or…an _intent.”_

 

She shook her head and laughed self-depreciatingly.

 

“You must think I’m _nuts…”_

 

“No, Esme, I don’t,” said Billy, sounding strangely earnest. “And if you _do_ ever see who is following you, please tell us. Whoever it is, I’ll believe you, even if nobody else does.”

 

He took Esme’s freezing hand in his warm one.

 

“And please, gods above, stay out of the woods,” he pleaded.

 

Grateful beyond expression for his understanding, Esme obeyed Billy and didn’t venture back into the forest for days. 

 

However, her dreaming mind had made no such promise. After a few nights of wandering, Esme found herself in the glade where she remembered having met the deer. It was nighttime, except between the trees where there should have been darkness, the forest was now a vivid electric green, startlingly alive. 

 

She gasped at the beauty and whirled around, laughing with delight as the stars glittered above her like millions of tiny diamonds.

 

 _Esme,_ called a voice from the trees.

 

Esme turned to see her usual visitor, Dr Cullen. He stepped almost sheepishly into the glade with a strange pulsing darkness around him. Instead of fear or embarrassment that he’d obviously seen her childish celebration, Esme felt a distinct kind of joy that he’d come to meet her here.

 

 _Carlisle,_ she answered, eagerly beckoning him forwards.

 

Shame-faced, he complied, but illuminated by Esme’s glow he was emboldened. Then, for the first time in this shadow realm he touched her, a halting, feather light brush of his fingers down her face, like rose petals… 

 

Before he leaned in and he _kissed_ her.

 

Esme gasped awake.

 

There was a cold draught in her room and something had banged shut, presumably her window, but she couldn’t tell in the few seconds of panicked disorientation whether it was that that woke her or the cold hand she very distinctly felt on her ankle.

 

Someone had been in her room. Someone had _touched_ her.

 

Shaking, it was hard to dress quickly, but very soon Esme had found her coat, a torch and, from the space above the living room doorframe, Charlie’s hunting rifle.

 

She knew she ought to tell someone where she was going, but Charlie wouldn’t believe her and would send her back to her invaded bed.

 

 _They all think I’m crazy,_ she thought as she silently crept out of the back door and headed for the black of the forest, adrenaline fizzing.

 

She loaded the gun.

 

_But that’s what they said before._


	17. Like A Christmas Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> I just wanted to say thank you all for reading (still) and I hope y'all are enjoying the story.
> 
> I hope this chapter isn't too creepy, but, actually, Edward does the very same thing to Bella, and apparently that was okay...

On the nights he wasn’t working, Carlisle sat, crossed legged like a naughty school boy, on Esme’s bedroom roof.

 

It was awful. It was wrong. 

 

He _needed_ it. 

 

He told himself he was desensitising himself to the smell of her blood but he knew, in truth, he needed to hear her every heartbeat, hear every sigh of her lungs, to make sure she was still there, as if she were a dream only tangible while he could hear her sleeping.

 

Through his…watching, Carlisle soon discovered that Esme dreamt of _him_ frequently - he heard her mutter his name in her sleep and make little whimpers of fear. Carlisle could smell her terror and knew he was the cause of it, which never failed to shame him to his very core.

 

However, on this particular Wednesday night, when she breathed Carlisle’s name Esme was trembling with bliss. He could sense her longing through the wall that separated him from her.

 

Enraptured, Carlisle noiselessly swept down onto the wall and peered through her window.

 

Despite unconsciousness, her body was humming with an inexplicable energy, which, unbeknownst to himself, was drawing Carlisle in like a siren song - like her blood but somehow sweeter.

 

Remembering the day in the forest when a similar thing had happened…and what the consequences had been, Carlisle was wary of this attraction.

 

However, it was at that moment that Esme giggled in her sleep and the battle was lost.

 

Cursing himself, Carlisle summoned as small tendril of darkness which obediently squeezed through the join of her window like an octopus’s tentacle and gently eased the latch of the window open.

 

Using every valuable ounce of the stealth that vampirism allowed him, Carlisle eased himself inside the room and crept towards his sleeping love, enjoying all the Esme-smells present in the room that, because of the potency of her blood, he never usually got the chance to memorise.

 

He noticed one of her darling little feet poking out from under her plain bedspread and smiled as her toes scrunched and un-scrunched while she slept. She had painted her toenails pink.

 

He was overcome with the need to touch her.

 

She was magnetic, addictive in a way that transcended any and all of the experiences in Carlisle’s life that had brought him closer to the Divine.

 

And, the problem was, he felt himself forgetting why he shouldn’t touch her, as if they had already spent a thousand nights in each other's arms. 

 

Perhaps, in one of the theoretical parallel universes that Bella maintained Alice had access to, they had.

 

Maybe, that first time he saw her in 1911, the break was so severe that he would have had to have carried her out to her father’s wagon and driven her to the hospital in Columbus and he would have operated. Perhaps he would have been overcome. Perhaps not.

 

Perhaps Esme was a nomad he met on his travels, or one of the Volturi.

 

They would easily have laughed together. And easily taken one another to bed.

 

He still would have married her, though. Even as a vampire.

 

God always appreciated an effort.

 

But what if they had both been human? If Esme had lived in one of the crowded streets around the church and had come to the service on Sunday, and he had, once, blushingly complimented her on her hair ribbons?

 

They would have married then, too.

 

Carlisle would have truly been a man of God, and they would have had several beautiful sons who he would have been very kind to. 

 

He and Esme would have been buried next to each other and, as the subsidence in the churchyard got worse, their gravestones would have come to lean upon one another as their human counterparts had done in life.

 

Their children and grandchildren would have come to visit.

 

“Esme…” he whispered pleadingly, the racing thoughts of what could have been stinging him as they peppered his body like bullets.

 

“Carlisle…” she replied, so clearly he was afraid he had somehow missed her waking up and she had heard him, but she slept on.

 

Carlisle became even stiller, only his eyes moved as they darted across her sleeping figure.

 

Her ankle was still a little bruised where it had been sprained and she had then had to run on it.

 

 _Because I scared her,_ Carlisle thought sadly.

 

He gazed at the poor injury as it lay on her bed.

 

He wanted to touch her skin.

 

Ah! But he needed to check the injury, he was a doctor, after all.

 

Without taking a single, dangerous breath while he was so close, slowly, Carlisle took Esme’s little foot in his palm. It was warm and desperately soft.

 

Suppressing an awed gasp, Carlisle slid his hand up her leg to her ankle.

 

And then she woke.

 

The vampire moved so fast he was more of a dark vapour than a physical being as he fled in shame. 

 

 _You’ve done it now, Carlisle,_ he thought to himself, furious with his own _stupid_ actions.

 

Sneaking into ladies' bedrooms like that was not good behaviour. Not at all. And especially when that lady happened to be vital to your continued existence (or, at least, that was what it was starting to feel like).

 

Concerned, he listened and heard her breathing fast, obviously and, completely understandably, _terrified._

 

She leapt out of bed and rushed downstairs, a moment later visible as she crept out into the backyard with her brother’s gun.

 

Carlisle squeezed his eyes shut tight.

 

Not this again! Not the bloody woods!

 

But now, without the wolves’ interference, Alice had seen Esme do this, and, before Esme had ventured too far, the air was full of the silence that meant vampires.

 

Carlisle watched Esme pause, afraid, as behind her, unseen by the human, Rosalie asked silent permission from her father to use her gift on that ridiculous pet of his.

 

Carlisle gave a curt nod of his head, though it wrenched his heart to do it to Esme.

 

He watched his beloved give a surprised jerk as the beautiful blonde teen stepped into view and locked Esme’s eyes with her own.

 

The doctor’s precious Esme sagged a little, like a rag doll, as she listened like an entranced kitten to what the vampire had to say.

 

“Go home,” Rosalie said, surprisingly softly. “Sleep. Remember nothing of this. We were never here. Neither were you. Go.”

 

With the look of a confused young child, Esme stumbled her way back to Charlie’s house and neatly put herself to bed.

 

Soon enough she was snoring very, very softly. Enchantingly so, Carlisle thought.

 

He was just turning his head away from her again when the slap caught his cheek.

 

“Rose! Stop!” Emmett shouted, as Carlisle muted his instinctive bellow of anger at the action.

 

“Have you lost your mind?” Rosalie hissed. “Huh?”

 

“Rosalie, I-”

 

 _“What_ were you planning to do?” she demanded.

 

“I…”

 

What _was_ his defence? He was checking her injury? What the hell had he actually been _thinking?_

 

“You’re right,” Carlisle said at last, as each and every conceivable excuse fell flat. “I’ve lost my mind.”

 

Rosalie harrumphed.

 

“He didn’t mean her any harm,” Edward muttered.

 

“Well he would have caused it had I not been here!” Rosalie snapped. “Christ! Did you smell that? She was terrified!”

 

She rounded again on Carlisle.

 

“Look here, I won’t hypnotise another _soul_ for you until you get over this _ridiculous_ obsession,” she told him harshly. “I’m sick of cleaning up your mess. Absolutely sick of it!”

 

“Rose, please-”

 

“And I am _so_ done with this conversation!” she announced over the top of whatever logical point Carlisle was trying to make, before sticking her hand in his face, shooting him a haughty look and vanishing.

 

Before following her, Emmett gave the doctor a jaunty wave that meant he would be with Rose off in the woods somewhere for as long as it took for her to calm down.

 

Carlisle turned pleadingly to his other son.

 

“Edward, please understand…” he began, begging the younger vampire to make more sense of his thoughts than he could.

 

The bronze-haired teen threw his hands up.

 

“What can I do about that, Carlisle?” he burst. “If she’s a singer to you, she’s a singer to you, that’s it! It doesn’t get easier!”

 

Bella watched another round of silent dialogue from her father to Edward.

 

“I _don’t_ know how she feels about you! _She_ doesn’t know how she feels about you!”

 

Edward turned to his wife and Alice, who’s eyes were miles away, for support.

 

“But you have to stop this, Carlisle,” he continued, more sternly. “She’s had some bad experiences, you _cannot_ grab her when she’s asleep…I know, Carlisle, I know it’s hard, and I know it wasn’t like that…”

 

“Carlisle, she remembers on Friday morning,” Alice said suddenly, breaking free of the grip of the future. “About you, and her leg. You’ll have to do something about it before you set off for Volterra.”

 

Carlisle knew his time had run out. She was bound to remember sooner or later.

 

“Yes,” he sighed defeatedly, suddenly feeling his great age. “Will do.”

 

 

-x-

 

 

“Mom…it still hurts!” cried first-grade Esme shrilly, clutching her cuddly giraffe. “It hurts, it hurts, it _hurts!”_

 

The little girl was in a state of panic, never having known pain such as that from a broken leg.

 

“Oh honey!” said her mom, trying to control her own hysteria, brushing Esme’s distinctive hair away from her clammy forehead. “I know, but the doctor will come in a minute and he’ll make it all better, I promise.”

 

And then the doctor did come.

 

“Esme Platt?” he asked, breathless and wide-eyed.

 

“Esme _Swan,”_ her mother corrected, feeling sorry for the ER doctor who looked extremely harassed. 

 

It was a busy day.

 

Esme’s mom had seen, amongst the usual ailments, a fifteen-year-old who had gone into labour six weeks early and a man who seemed to have cut half his fingers off with a saw.

 

Esme had been a little lower down the list of priorities.

 

“My apologies, Miss Swan,” the doctor said, to Esme rather than her mother. “I was…thinking of another patient. Are you her mother?”

 

Esme’s mom nodded while the girl in question gawped.

 

“You look like a Christmas _angel,”_ she said seriously, pain temporarily forgotten.

 

Despite being too young for any sexual attraction to the man, Esme’s bright artistic mind could already appreciate his remarkable beauty.

 

Her mom laughed nervously.

 

“I’m sorry, doctor,” she said, though she had half a mind to agree with her daughter. 

 

He looked _too_ perfect. But he was damaged, Esme’s mom thought, using the intuition that her daughter inherited.

 

The doctor gave her a taut smile. 

 

He obviously got that a lot.

 

“That’s alright,” he said briskly but with a hollow courtesy chuckle. “I’m a sucker for compliments! Now, this leg.”

 

He gently moved Esme’s leg and she gasped.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, strangely seriously.

 

And, Esme noted, he _did_ look truly sorry, not just grown-up ‘sorry’ when they didn’t really mean it at all.

 

He peered at the injury very carefully, as if he were very squeamish and not a seasoned medical professional.

 

Esme couldn’t tell whether he looked more angry or more sick.

 

Maybe he was mad because he felt sick? Or maybe he got so mad that he made himself sick, like a toddler?

 

“Well,” he said, lunging away. “There’s no blood, so that’s…”

 

He laughed nervously.

 

“…That’s excellent news, the bone didn’t pierce the skin, but it’s a nasty one. I’ll have to re-set it, which isn’t going to be nice, Esme, but then your leg can get better.”

 

“Will…will it really hurt?” Esme asked worriedly, bottom lip trembling.

 

“It will sting, yes,” he said briskly, moving his hands over the injury as his throat burned and his inner vampire snarled. “But it’s so it can heal, Esme. Are you ready?”

 

She whimpered, panicked, and squirmed on the bed, realising the doctor meant _now._

 

“Mom?” she asked breathily.

 

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she replied, burying Esme’s head in her chest.

 

“I’ll give you a countdown, alright?” the doctor said.

 

She shook her head frantically.

 

“I’m not ready, not ready!” she said, squashing poor Mr ‘Raffe’s head in two.

 

“Three,” the doctor said. “Two..”

 

On ‘two’ his hands gave a wrench and Esme screamed as he realigned the bone.

 

_“AWWWWWW! MOMMY!…”_

 

“Very good, Miss Swan,” he said, proceeding to tend to the leg.

 

And rather harshly, too, Ms Swan thought, not failing to see he looked strained.

 

“Long shift?” she asked conversationally.

 

“Yes,” replied the doctor thickly. “I’ve been here for sixteen hours.”

 

Well, that explained why he looked rough.

 

“Ouch,” she said.

 

He shrugged.

 

“It’s where I like to be,” he told her curtly, though Esme didn’t think that could be true.

 

“Well _I_ like climbing trees,” she chattered, nervous with pain. “Which is how I got hurt. Except this time I was rescuing a cat.”

 

The doctor stopped dead.

 

“Rescuing a cat, did you say?” he repeated, almost in wonder.

 

Esme’s mom thought he might be appalled by her parenting skills, and jumped to rectify that.

 

“Well,” she told Esme with the nearest she ever came to sternness. “After today I think we have to stop that, hmmm? Big girls don’t climb trees.”

 

Esme looked down, saddened.

 

“Actually,” said the doctor. “If I may, I think climbing trees is great fun. I do it myself sometimes.”

 

Esme’s mom laughed, believing he was joking.

 

“Really?” asked Esme hopefully.

 

“Really,” replied the doctor gruffly. “Now, that should be all done. We’ll get you sorted out with some crutches and I’ll prescribe something for the pain.”

 

“Thank you Dr Cullen,” said Esme’s mom, as the man all but sprinted from the room, having tended to the injury in record time.

 

“Mom?” asked a scared Esme, worriedly pulling on her mother’s sleeve, as soon as she thought the doctor was out of earshot. “Why is he so _upset?”_

 

“He’s not upset, he’s just been working for a long time,” she said soothingly.

 

“Why doesn’t he like me?” whispered Esme.

 

“What? Of _course_ he likes you sweetie!” exclaimed her mother. “You’ve been so _brave!”_

 

Esme wasn’t convinced.

 

“I think I was hurting him,” Esme said sadly, in the matter-of-fact way children often did, not knowing how bizarre, but true, their statement was.

 

She didn’t want to hurt him! He was…he was _precious._

 

“So,” said the doctor breezily, returning after a few moments with the smell of eucalyptus. “Here is the medication, and the instructions, that’s two every six hours for two days, including in the night if she needs it, then, something a little more gentle… twice a day with food. So if you’d like to please sign here…”

 

Esme watched the doctor talk, rather than listening to what he was saying. His mouth moved in a lovely way, and he was extremely pretty even though he was frowning.

 

And then he was turning to leave.

 

 _“Wait!”_ Esme shouted, making her mother, and even her remarkable doctor jump a little. “Don’t go!”

 

Why she said this, she’d never know.

 

The doctor thought he did. She was tempting him…Goading him…

 

“I must attend to my other patients,” he said, sounding strained and still facing the door. “I hope you feel better soon, Miss Swan.”

 

And with a tummy full of worry for Esme, and a throat full of fire for the doctor, he stormed away, and handed in his notice the very next day, relocating to Albany.

 

She had a fantastic doctor, her leg healed impeccably, but Esme’s mind never forgot.


	18. Evidence

Grown-up Esme woke with a jolt.

 

 _That_ was where she knew Carlisle from! That meeting when she was seven years old had been niggling on her subconscious ever since she first met Dr Cullen in Forks. He had that same expression on his face even then.

 

What. The actual. Fuck?

 

But…how was he…?

 

Though it was very early, Esme launched herself out of bed, trying to do the math.

 

Okay, so that was twenty-five years ago…No way could Dr Cullen look the same age…That wasn’t…

 

No, that couldn’t be possible. She’d obviously remembered wrong. She’d been _tiny!_ And in pain. Forget it!

 

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t shake it. Dr Cullen.

 

Then inspiration struck. When she got to work, she’d check her own medical record on the system, and she’d know for sure.

 

Bolting downstairs, she scurried though some semblance of breakfast and then darted back upstairs to wash and dress.

 

Grabbing her things, she was just at the door when she noticed the smear of mud on the rug from Charlie’s boots when he came home late the previous evening.

 

Esme squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

 

_You did not just see that. The rug is clean._

 

She let out a breath and bravely stepped outside, leaving the rug dirty.

 

“‘Kay then, Esme,” she muttered to herself sarcastically, spinning her car keys agitatedly around her finger. “Let’s play ‘normal for a day’. How about it’s ‘Normal Person Friday’ today?” 

 

She got into her car and shut the door, took three deep breaths and set off down the deserted street. However, as she drove, she felt the familiar kind of not-quite-itch in the very centre of her brain - the one that meant she hadn’t done something she ought to have done.

 

_The rug, the rug, the rug…_

 

The feeling was infuriating and made her want to shake her head to get rid of it, or cringe so hard it moved to a part of her body she _could_ itch.

 

The smear of dirt swam in front of her eyes and the imaginary itch got worse. 

 

She almost missed the stop sign at the end of the street.

 

“Shit!” she muttered, punching the car into reverse and going back down the street, pulling back into the driveway (probably not her finest bit of driving).

 

There was no point in killing herself or someone else on the way to work all for a smear of dirt on the carpet. It would only take a moment…

 

Esme rushed out of the car and slammed the door shut before barrelling back into the house. She dashed into the kitchen and wrenched open the cleaning cupboard, feeling slightly tearful with defeat all the while.

 

“Please be here, please be here,” she whispered to the elusive carpet stain-remover.

 

Esme felt the first flips of panic in her stomach when it wasn’t where she left it but then, thank God Above, she found it at the back of the bottom shelf and tottered back into the hallway to begin squirting and scrubbing furiously with her cloth.

 

“Wow, Esme…er…morning?” said a sleepy-sounding Renée from the top of the stairs.

 

“Morning! Just…doing this,” Esme said through determinedly gritted teeth.

 

Renée’s face fell as she realised what was going on.

 

“Oh no! Esme, honey, let me do that later…” she pleaded.

 

“No!” Esme cried, losing her temper a little, at both her sister-in-law and herself. “Thank you, Renée, but _I_ have to do this. Plus your due date is in less than three weeks, you shouldn’t be on your hands and knees scrubbing the damn carpet at seven fifteen in the morning.”

 

 _Neither should you, Esme,_ Renée thought sadly.

 

“You were up pretty early today,” she noted, watching the furious cleaning continue with gusto. “Did you sleep okay?”

 

“Yes, fine,” Esme said quickly. “I just had to get to work early. I have…scheduling to do.”

 

“Ooooh, Dr Cullen’s schedule!” said Renée excitedly, leaping upon the new, (and favoured), topic. “Let me guess…9AM: look gorgeous. 10AM: look gorgeous. 11 AM:…look gorgeous.”

 

“Not really helping, Renée…” Esme muttered as she gave the carpet another furious squirt. 

 

“…1 PM: help some woman you don’t know fix her broken car by the side of the road because apparently you know how to do that.”

 

Esme stopped scrubbing.

 

“What, seriously?”

 

“Absolutely!” Renée burst. “Well, according to Christina Mallory…”

 

Esme rolled her eyes.

 

“Oh shit!” she said, flopping off her knees to sit mermaid-style on the hallway floor. “I totally forgot I agreed to go with her and Heather to get their bridesmaid dresses altered after work today…”

 

Esme gave a little pained huff.

 

“Do you think it’s too late to ditch?” she asked Renée, pleading for a ‘no’. “I just _cannot_ deal with a double dose of Christina today, let alone Heather too.”

 

“No, Esme, you should go out,” Renée said like a stern mother, thinking that an evening out with the two women actually sounded like fun. “Have some _girl time.”_

 

Esme sighed and picked at the carpet, now thankfully uni-tonal.

 

“Fine,” she sighed, recognising defeat.

 

“That’s the spirit!” Renée said encouragingly. “Now go tell Dr Cullen I said hi!”

 

“I’ll be _sure_ to do that!” Esme said with bright sarcasm as she returned the cleaning equipment and stepped out of the door into the drizzle, having no intension whatsoever of doing so.

 

When she got to work, after the second attempt, Carlisle was already in the office they shared, absently swivelling on his chair as he finished writing up his notes. 

 

“Morning,” he said cheerfully, fully awake, even after his gruelling night shift.

 

“Morning,” Esme replied, eyeing the doctor.

 

He smiled.

 

“How’s Jasper doing?” Esme asked politely (that poor boy!) as she carefully hung up her coat and bag to dry.

 

“A little worse, actually,” Carlisle said with a little create between his brows. “But over the weekend he went to his aunt, Tanya, up in Alaska, and she really is wonderful with his condition.”

 

“Oh, well, I hope he feels better,” Esme said genuinely, not understanding how impossible that would probably be.

 

Carlisle accepted her goodwill with a small nod and a rather guarded expression before going back to his work. Esme didn't know whether it was her imagination, but the doctor didn’t seem to be making as much eye-contact as usual. Guilty conscience perhaps…

 

“Um…Dr Cullen, your…leave slip?” Esme asked tentatively as she turned her attention to her beloved colour-coded ring-binders, remembering with equal measures of relief and disappointment that he was taking a few days off. “Did you fix that up?”

 

“Yes, all done and dusted,” he replied, being blessed with the same kind of efficiency. “I’m flying to Italy this afternoon.”

 

For a moment Esme imagined Carlisle sprouting an enormous pair of wings to propel himself across the Atlantic. A Christmas angel, indeed.

 

You know he looked a _lot_ like the man she remembered.

 

“I’m visiting some old friends from Med School,” he added before turning his face away again.

 

“Wow, well have a nice trip,” Esme said warmly. “Get lots of sun for me!”

 

“I will be sure to do that, Esme,” he replied with a rueful smirk, handing her all his lovely, careful notes to type up later.

 

Dr Cullen’s handwriting really wasn’t bad compared to spider-like sprawl that Dr Gerardy handed Christina every day ("like, what the _hell_ am I supposed to _do_ with this, Esme?”), however it seemed overly loopy, like each of his observations about how Mrs Holland was walking on her new hip was going to be entered into a calligraphy competition, and was for that reason sometimes equally challenging. But Esme loved deciphering all his little letters and she felt like a little piece of her died when she shredded a page she was finished with.

 

He was _so_ meticulous and _had_ _been_ so meticulous as he tended to her broken leg…

 

As the doctor began to pack his bag to go home, with the same care with which he did most other things too, Esme watched him, drawing on the smokey memory from her childhood.

 

It was him. 

 

It had to have been him.

 

“Dr Cullen?” Esme asked at last, just as he reached the door.

 

“Yes?” he replied warily.

 

“Did…did you ever work in Seattle?” 

 

There, she’d said it. The beast was loose.

 

“No,” he said quickly. “…Though I’ve heard it’s a wonderful hospital…Why do you…?”

 

“I just…I feel like I’ve seen you before,” she said carefully. “Before I moved here.”

 

“Oh,” he said lightly. “Well, I have a few relatives in the medical profession, it could have been one of them. I know my second-cousin moves around a lot.”

 

“…Right,” said Esme, looking into the same pair of eyes that had scoured her childhood injury. “Yeah…that’s probably it…”

 

Carlisle saw the recognition in her gaze and knew he had failed miserably in his evasion.

 

“Can I get you anything before I go?” he asked, trying to distract her before the certainty could roost too cosily in her mind. “Coffee? Tea? Dr Thomson even brought in a tub of shortbread this morning and put it in the bottom of the fridge, (though you didn’t hear that from me), if…you would like any?"

 

Carlisle looked extremely hopeful all of a sudden, as if fetching coffee and shortbread for his secretary was the number one thing any doctor wanted to be doing between finishing his night shift and trying to get five teenagers to school and packing for his trip. Jesus, when did this guy _sleep?_

 

Despite her suspicion, Esme smiled.

 

“No, thank you, Dr Cullen, but much appreciated.”

 

“Well, until next week!” he called. “Ciao ciao!”

 

He gave Esme a wave and one of his bizarre little Mona Lisa smiles and ducked out of the office.

 

“Bye,” she said, but too quietly for him to have heard, or so she thought, and tried to massage the blush out of her cheeks.

 

What was wrong with her? She was meant to be sleuthing this guy out, not deepening her crush on him and admiring his _goddamn handwriting!_

 

…Although you could get handwriting professionally analysed, right? By criminologists and such?

 

She peered at his papers. What did Carlisle’s writing say? ‘I’m an immortal psychopath’?

 

 _Mrs Holland shows little discomfort when walking but reports some unusual sensation in the opposite (left) knee not previously felt - diagnosis is developing lymphedema in left leg - referral for bandaging given est. 6-10 days for appointment,_ declared his beautiful cursive. 

 

Yeah, it probably did.  

 

With renewed purpose, Esme logged onto the computer. She used her nifty shortcut to get onto the system by going into the history and opening the last closed window. She was surprised when it popped up as ‘Medical Records’.

 

 _That_ wasn’t the last thing she’d been on the previous day…so why…?

 

A little uneasy, she searched her own name and found her record. She scrolled down to the leg-break. She read the summary and looked for the doctor’s name. 

 

**Dr Khan.**

 

Wrong!

 

No, not Dr Khan! Dr _Cullen!_

 

What…?

 

Frowning, and determined to prove she wasn’t losing her mind, Esme looked back to her computer and went into the history again to look up what time the window had been previously opened.

 

7:30 AM. 

 

When Carlisle had been alone in the office.

 

Esme stifled a gasp. 

 

The doctor had just _changed_ her medical record. He had erased himself from her past.

 

Esme was about to ask herself why, but, in fact, it was damn obvious why he’d done it. 

 

Admitting to the fact that you don’t age, and have therefore been lying to the whole town about pretty much everything you can, may throw the rumours that you murdered your wife a little more into the foreground. 

 

Unless…I mean, he _didn’t_ do that, right? Carlisle wouldn’t…

 

 _Yes,_ Esme suddenly thought, remembering his black eyes boring into her. _Yes, he absolutely would kill another person, even one he loved._

 

“Oh Jesus,” she whispered, nibbling her knuckles agitatedly.

 

She should tell Charlie, or Billy, or somebody about this.

 

Billy’s face flickered across her mind, over the bonfire telling Esme about the bad, bad man.

 

Was _Carlisle_ who he meant? God knows he hated the guy.

 

But reasonably, the fact that Esme had dreamt about Carlisle fixing her leg did not compound any kind of guilt at all on the doctor’s part, she knew that. That was no evidence at all. She didn’t have any…

 

No, hang on a minute! That’s not true, she _did_ have evidence.

 

For the rest of the day, Esme couldn’t focus. Her whole mind was consumed with the piece of paper she remembered would be mouldering away in Charlie’s attic. And there were only five hours until she could get home and find it…only three…only one…

 

“Hey, Charlie?” Esme asked, skidding into the living room as soon as she got back.

 

“Hey, Es,” he replied, eyes still on the football game. “How was your d-?”

 

“I was wondering if Mom kept any of my old school things here?” Esme rushed. “Like, Elementary School?”

 

“Why?” asked Charlie, turning to give her a raised eyebrow.

 

“Just wanted a look,” she replied as casually as possible.

 

Thankfully Charlie probed no further, used to bowing to Renée’s strange whims (of which there were many).

 

“Sure, it’s in the attic, er…sorta to the left of the door…”

 

Esme had already vanished.

 

“Call down if there’s anything too heavy!” Charlie shouted to her. “And don’t fall down the ladder!”

 

“Goddit, Chief!” came Esme’s voice, already somewhere upstairs.

 

She wiped the dust off the box labelled “Esme, Elementary School”, having battled her way into the attic and heaved the box out from where it was hiding under some fishing tackle.

 

 _Awww, Mom,_ Esme thought sadly as she found all the fairly unimportant slips of paper that her mother had dutifully scrapbooked to document her daughter’s precious early life.

 

Giving a small sniffle, Esme did let a few tears escape, knowing that her mother wouldn’t have begrudged her the grief she deserved. Mom wouldn’t have been a grandmother either way…

 

Esme sniffed unattractively and drew her sleeve across her face like a gross toddler.

 

Fuck it, she was always a toddler when she missed her mother, her closest friend.

 

Half blind, Esme opened the box and cast aside play programmes, math sheets and one grudging sports certificate until she found her First Grade drawing book. 

 

It must be in there! (A lot of things were thanks to her First Grade teacher, Mrs Mayhew, who loved giving the kids ‘free time’ while she drank a lot of coffee).

 

Esme flicked through it until she found what she was looking for. The drawing was captioned _‘my_ _brockn leg’_ and showed a smiling Esme…or close enough, having her leg bandaged…

 

…By a frowning blonde doctor. _Not_ Dr Khan as her medical record stated.

 

Hell, she’d even coloured his eyes with gold gel pen to get the colour right.

 

 _Esme_ said the label pointing to herself while the careful letters under the doctor proudly proclaimed him to be ‘ _Docta Culin'._

 

Doctor Cullen. _Irrefutable_ evidence. 

 

Thank _God_ for Mrs Mayhew.

 

So there. There was _no_ way she’d made that up. That was drawn the day after she’d got home from the hospital. And _that was her doctor._

 

 _It could have been Carlisle’s father,_ she thought reasonably. _Or uncle…_

 

But she just…she just _knew_ it had been him. 

 

Impossible as it was, Carlisle Cullen had not aged a day for twenty five years. Therefore he’d also lied about his medical schooling, his workplaces…and he’d changed her medical record. 

 

There was a good chance he had murdered his own wife.

 

And there was a good chance he would kill again to protect himself.

 

Esme started to panic. She felt the sensation of heavy dread wash over her like an avalanche. 

 

No. H-he was not like Charles. He wasn’t….

 

But the idea that the doctor…whoever he really was, was trying to unhinge her wouldn’t go away. 

 

He wanted something from her, she could tell. He looked at her too intently. Knew too much.

 

Followed her.

 

With a thudding heart, Esme knew that was true. _He_ was her dark shadow. Somehow she’d known it from the start.

 

 _Alright,_ she thought after a deep breath and a wave of nausea. _The next time I see him, I’ll confront him._

 

And she’d have time to plan what she would say - he wouldn’t be back until next week after…

 

…Oh for _fuck’s_ sake…

 

In her detective frenzy, Esme had forgotten that first she would have to survive an _entire evening_ of Heather Stanley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh...
> 
> Esme's going into Port Angeles with some 'friends' for the evening to try on dresses. 
> 
> I think we all know what happens next...
> 
> ...And it ain't pretty.


	19. Dresses Then Drinks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I am on an uploading roll here!
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with this story, and I would like to dedicate this chapter to anyone and everyone who had(/is having) a shit time in high school...
> 
> And for any 'Heather's or 'Christina's out there - just give it a rest, okay?

 

“Esme! Christina’s here to pick you up!” Charlie yelled from the kitchen where he was _extremely_ _busy,_ fixing something unspecified (better known as avoiding Christina and Heather with all his might).

 

“Coming!” Esme called, quickly finishing her hair-braid and grabbing her purse.

 

As a final touch, she donned her best ‘I do this all the time’ face and strode out to where the babble of female tones was loudest.

 

“Honestly, being pregnant suits you, Renée,” said the most nasal of the voices as Esme triple-checked she had everything she needed and shot the rug a glance to reassure herself of its cleanliness. “And you’ll lose _all_ that baby weight in no time! And I don’t tell many people that, believe me, and…Esme! Hi!”

 

“Hey, Heather!” Esme said, feeling a little shy all of a sudden. “Hi Christina!”

 

“Hey, _you!”_ Christina said with the doting look you give a much younger sister. “Dresses then drinks?”

 

“Sounds super!” Esme said bravely.

 

“Oh I’m _jealous!”_ Renée sighed. “Give me a few weeks and I’ll join you!”

 

Christina and Heather shared a laugh at Renée’s naïvety.

 

“Honey, give it a few _years,”_ Christina said. “Being a mom doesn’t stop at the birth you know. The real fun starts when they start to _crawl.”_

 

“The real fun starts when they get interested in _boys,_ and start sneaking out,” Heather corrected her. “Except not my Jessica who’s always been _way_ too mature for that kind of thing.”

 

Esme smiled and nodded politely. She’d heard differently. 

 

“Well, I’ll see you later, Renée,” Esme said, fiddling with her bag strap (hoping it wouldn’t be _too_ much later), as she got into the car.

 

“Bye, Esme!” Renée called, watching as the car disappeared down the street which made Esme feel a little like a teenager going on her first date.

 

“You know, we kinda thought you wouldn’t come,” Heather informed Esme chirpily from the driver’s seat, where next to her Christina had turned to scrutinise Esme in the backseat. “I know you don’t go out very much.”

 

“I…guess not?” Esme replied uncertainly, suddenly feeling like her fourteen-year-old-self being put on the spot because not going out was _really, really bad._

 

“Well, that’s okay,” Heather babbled. “It’s probably because you’re the odd-one-out in this town, but you’ll settle in eventually.”

 

Esme laughed.

 

“Gee, thanks, Heather. I… _have_ been here a few months now.”

 

 _“I_ have been here for _forty-two years,_ Esme,” Heather said, as if this were commendable (perhaps it was).

 

“Wait, you’re forty-two?” Christina giggled. “That means _I’m_ forty-two as well!” 

 

They shrieked with laughter together.

 

Their mothers had been sisters, and best friends, and had had their babies at the same time - just as Christina and Heather had done. It was another relative of theirs who was getting married.

 

“Ugh, why are you so _young,_ Esme?” Heather groaned to her passenger, casting her eye over the caramel braid in the rear-view.

 

She really _was_ the ‘odd-one-out’.

 

However, once Heather and Christina really got chatting, the drive to Port Angeles was actually okay. Well, it was fairly short seeing as Heather drove quite fast and the sun was out (unusually) so they drove with the windows down and it was blessedly noisy.

 

After they parked, Esme trailed behind Heather and Christina to the dress shop where she agreed the dresses looked wonderful (which was the only answer you could give in that situation) and that the alterations that the seamstress was going to make were just what they needed, and yes, she wasn’t just saying that - they both really did look lovely.

 

Then, it was time to march to Christina’s favourite bar and ordered their drinks.

 

“So, Esme…sparking water?” Christina asked as Esme was thanking the bartender for her drink. 

 

Heather’s eyes widened in excitement as inspiration struck.

 

“Wait!” she hissed fugitively. “You’re not…?”

 

She nodded suggestively to Esme’s midriff.

 

“Um, no…I’m not…I just don’t drink,” Esme said lightly, wanting to change the subject.

 

“Okay…” Christina said from Esme’s other elbow, tapping the side of her nose infuriatingly. “Your secret’s safe with me…”

 

“I’m _not!”_ Esme burst, embarrassingly defensively as she felt sickness settle in her stomach and her heart ache.

 

Christina and Heather weren’t to know that they were treading _extremely_ dangerous waters as far as Esme was concerned.

 

“Okay…” Heather laughed, at Esme. “Chill. Jesus.”

 

“…So who’s the father?” Christina asked, smirking over her wine.

 

Esme merely shook her head, trying to look as if she thought the whole thing was a joke and she found it funny, rather than that she was blinking back tears.

 

“Is it…?” Heather began, playing with her straw absently. “Wait no, I’m actually thinking about this…Ted Yorkie?”

 

“I don’t even know who that is,” Esme said flatly.

 

“How about… _Ohh_ is it a La Push guy?” Christina asked, nudging Esme’s arm. “I bet it was a La Push guy.”

 

“One of those big Indians?” Heather demanded.

 

“The… _Native American_ men?” Esme asked. “No, it isn’t anyone. I’m not pregnant. Can we please talk about something else?”

 

“Or Billy Black?” Heather continued. “You like him, right?”

 

“Well, yeah, he’s my friend, but-”

 

“Could he even…y’know…” Christina interrupted, pulling a face. “Since he’s…y’know…”

 

She tapped her legs.

 

Esme bristled.

 

“Well I _expect_ so!” she countered, offended on Billy’s behalf.

 

“Who else could it be…” Heather mused. “A doctor! Dr Gerardy?”

 

With dread, Esme knew where this was going.

 

She _really_ didn’t like where this was going.

 

_Don’t think about him, don’t think about him…_

 

What she would give _not_ to hear Dr Cullen’s name after everything she had realised about him that morning.

 

“Dr Gerardy’s an old man at heart,” Christina laughed. “Trust me. More of a cocoa and bed kind of guy.”

 

“Hmm, true,” Heather allowed, tapping her chin with her acrylic nails infuriatingly. “Dr Thomson, then? Or Dr Carter? Dr Cullen…?”

 

There it was.

 

Esme blushed, as she always did when she heard his name, but, in the warm bar under the scrutiny of her peers, it was much more pronounced. 

 

“Oh. My. God,” Christina said slowly. “It’s totally _him!_ Holy _shit!”_

 

“It’s not!” Esme insisted. “I’m not pregnant!”

 

“Look at that _blush!”_ Heather squealed.

 

“How was he?” Christina asked slyly.

 

“I wouldn’t know!” Esme hissed, mortified. “I’ve never slept with him!”

 

Esme was bright red now, because even though she didn’t know what Carlisle was like in bed, didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about it. Which had shocked her, actually.

 

“I bet he was incredible, I mean, _girl…”_ Heather said with heavy emphasis.

 

“Yeah, I’d take him to bed _any_ day,” Christina, that would be _Mrs_ Mallory, announced. “Eye candy and…” 

 

Her eyes flipped ostentatiously down into her lap. 

 

“…Other candy.”

 

In a flash, Esme was livid.

 

Whether it was the fact that she was being picked on like some unfortunate mid-teen, or the strange, primal urge she suddenly felt to defend Carlisle (even after all that she had found out about him - what had come over her?), she didn’t know.

 

“I…don’t think you should talk about him that way,” she said, strangely shakily. “He is a _person,_ you know, not a hunk of meat.”

 

 _“Sorry,_ we’ll back off,” Heather smirked. “…If he’s yours.”

 

“He’s not mine! We’re not-”

 

“Just pur- _lease_ tell me it didn’t happen at work!” Christina giggled, enjoying Esme’s weakness and embarrassment, after she’d unwittingly embarrassed all the other secretaries at work by actually being extremely good at the job.

 

“I think Carlisle has a little more professional integrity than that, thanks,” Esme said snappily.

 

“Funny,” Heather said lightly, with calculated poise. “He’s never really seemed interested in a relationship with any of the women in town, but who knew! Carlisle just likes…”

 

Her eyes gave Esme the quick up-and-down that means ‘fuck you, bitch’ in girl-language, as the conversation turned a lot nastier.

 

“…Curvier girls,” she finished sweetly. “He loves a project.”

 

Okay, it was true that Esme was no runway model in that respect. But who was, seriously? Not fucking _Heather,_ that’s for certain, so why she thought she had the _right-_

 

“I’m _sure_ he does,” Esme said with a tight smile.

 

“You know what?” Christina said loudly. “I would actually _leave my husband_ if Dr Cullen would agree to do me. Once, and I would leave.”

 

“Sounds…pretty drastic…” Esme laughed nervously, wondering if it really _was_ just her that Carlisle had such a bizarre effect upon.

 

“Not at all!” Heather butted in. “Esme, _you_ did it, right?”

 

“I…what?”

 

“You’re recently divorced,” Christina said sweetly. “Or so I heard…”

 

“I… _yes,_ but-”

 

“Was he a hulking blond god?” Heather wondered in a sultry voice.

 

Esme laughed weakly, fists clenching in her lap and nails digging into her palms as Charles’ face threatened to invade her memories.

 

“No, not exactly,” Esme replied breathlessly.

 

“What?” Heather continued mercilessly. “But that’s your type, right?”

 

“Guys, I need to stop talking about this,” Esme rushed desperately, in an urgent voice that most people would have respected. “What about something else…”

 

“I gotta say, Carlisle Cullen is one _hell_ of a rebound,” Christina said to Heather who nodded knowingly.

 

“We’re _not_ in a _relationship!”_ Esme reminded her frantically.

 

“But you’d like that, right?”

 

“Oh, _yeah,”_ Christina purred. “Cullen and Swan, the dream team. Always have their paperwork done before _anybody else,_ because what else is there to live for?”

 

“Now we know why you both work so much longer than everyone else…”

 

“Hmmm, nice secluded little office…”

 

“…Making him soup…”

 

“I never made him soup!”

 

“And now you’re _pregnant?”_

 

Esme took a deep breath.

 

“I’m not pregnant,” she began calmly. “Because I can’t carry a child anymore. Now can we _please_ drop this?”

 

“We’re just concerned about you, Esme,” Heather said, awash with _faux_ concern. “We just don’t want to see you rushing into anything…even if he is rich and handsome.”

 

Christina nodded agreement. 

 

“There are some bad people out there too, you know,” she informed Esme condescendingly.

 

Esme stood up.

 

“Heather, Christina, thank you for the wonderful evening,” she said, teetering on the edge of explosion. “But now I _have_ to _go._ See you on Monday.”

 

With that, Esme left the bar, with only the thought that she had to _work_ with Christina stopping her from saying some of the acerbic things she was thinking.

 

Behind her, the two women were still tittering about Esme’s baby hormones, and how Christina had been so ratty too when she was pregnant with Lauren. Strange since Rennie’s such a lovely girl…

 

Esme was furious. 

 

And _here she was_ feeling as if she ought to spend more time around other people! Hah!

 

What was this? Seventh-grade summer camp?

 

She angrily stormed away from the bar.

 

It was dark now, and Esme was conscious of the fact that she had crucially walked away from her ride home.

As the cold began to seep under her jacket (which was more fashion than sense), and the anger subsided, Esme reminded herself of the fact that, even in a place like Port Angeles, it wasn’t wise for a woman to be out walking alone on a Friday night.

 

_Okay, engaging brain…_

 

She could call Charlie…or a cab. She’d probably call a cab. Or she could walk to the bus station. How far was that? Like, three blocks?

 

Wrapping her jacket tighter around herself, Esme set off briskly, checking over her shoulder habitually to ensure she was alone.

 

Check

 

Alone…

 

Check

 

Still alone…

 

Check 

 

Still…

 

Wait, no. There was someone there.

 

Esme snapped her head forward again and started to walk more purposefully as the figure meandered its way down the street behind her.

 

_Hold it together, Esme! He’s probably just meeting his friends - he’s not interested in you!_

 

She couldn’t deal with the fucking paranoia tonight. After her discoveries, and after Charles had been brought up, it felt like the door the the underworld had been left slightly ajar. 

 

Something wicked this way comes…

 

Another quick dart of the head told Esme that there were now _two_ people in the street behind her. _Two!_

 

Her heart pounded and she considered going for her phone, but she disciplined herself.

 

This fear is about Charles. They are not Charles. Keep walking.

 

But no, she _was_ being followed. 

 

…And he _was_ meeting his friends…

 

Esme’s footsteps slowed suddenly as the street opened up into a parking lot, and the first, second and third little groups of the hunting party converged, greeting each other with triumphant whoops and whistles as their prey’s head darted around desperately, calculating how bad her odds were.

 

Pretty bad.

 

There were _seven_ of them.


	20. The Seven Dwarfs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. 
> 
> Okay, okay, okay.
> 
> People.
> 
> There is nothing graphic in this chapter (writing gang-rapes is NOT how I want to be spending my time). 
> 
> However, trigger warning for, well, the above and also for domestic violence, because poor Esme has a bit of a flashback later on in the chapter. 
> 
> If the upcoming scene will upset you, Carlisle arrives nearly a fifth of the way into the chapter *spoiler alert*, so I’d go from there.
> 
> Second thing:
> 
> Recently, I was asked by another writer (shout-out to nickaroos on FanFiction!) about the symbolism of the forest in the story.
> 
> There IS symbolism in it (escape), and there is also symbolism in the wolves being there, and I’ll tell you why…
> 
> So, in high school, my literature teacher told the class (and I don't know if this is true but it sounds reasonable) that wolves in fairytales are metaphors for rapists and sexually violent people - e.g. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is told as a warning to girls not to go out alone wearing provocative clothing.
> 
> In this story, Esme being chased by the wolves (even though they are Jacob and co. but she wasn’t to know this) mirrors what is happening now with the men following her, and kind of what happened with Charles, which, ironically, was what she was trying to avoid by moving to Washington. Also, when she confronts the wolf (Jacob) and decides he isn’t too dangerous, that’s also symbolic of what is going to happen between Esme and Car- *ahem* a certain someone.
> 
> Tah dah!
> 
> Anyway, this is one of my favourite chapters (I’m not twisted, you’ll see why I say that) and I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Please! Read on…

_When did my life become one long, painful, drawn-out nightmare?_ Esme thought numbly as the men got closer.

 

Maybe when she married Charles. 

 

Probably she she _met_ Charles.

 

Possibly when she was born.

 

How many times a week did she find herself in situations where she thought she was going to die? 

 

At least one, usually way more, depending on what place her mind was in when she woke up. 

 

But now, again, the nightmare was real.

 

 _Please God, no!_ Esme thought desperately, as tears stung at her eyes. _Please not like this._

 

“Hey there, Frozen!” brayed one of the men and she stiffened visibly, her body habitually preparing itself for what was coming.

 

“Where’s your handsome prince?” another said, eliciting a round of raucous laughter.

 

Esme didn’t know what they meant until a third man tugged on her long caramel-coloured braid. She’d endured a lot of Disney Princess jokes throughout her adolescence.

 

“Get off me!” she whimpered, sounding extremely feminine and afraid, which some rational part of her brain knew was just exciting them.

 

“I’ll be her prince,” a man leered.

 

Esme tasted bile in her mouth as she caught the sickeningly familiar smell of sour beer on his breath.

 

“Hot,” the first speaker said with an animal kind of appreciation.

 

“Get _off_ me!” Esme shouted.

 

“Nah, beautiful,” he laughed. “Not dressed like that.”

 

Esme didn’t know how her jeans, jacket and polo neck top counted as provocative dress. Then again she didn’t know anything anymore…her mind was fogging, ears ringing…

 

“She _obviously_ wants it,” another said, swaggering forward with his groin thrust out in front of him, as if for her acknowledgement, though the opposite couldn’t be more clear.

 

Esme looked away tearfully.

 

“Timid girl, huh? No, take a good look, sweetie,” the man said, taking hold of her chin with sweaty fingers and forcing her gaze down. “Where do you want it first?”

 

Another of the men laughed.

 

“Slut!”

 

Esme screamed as one of the men roughly grabbed her arms from behind, and another moved in to kiss her.

 

Sadly for him, he never got the chance.

 

As if from nowhere, a black car skidded across the parking lot, stopping dangerously close to the group of men that surrounded Esme.

 

A man stepped out of the car, leaving the engine purring and the headlights on full beam, throwing him into silhouette. He was darkness.

 

His fists were balled at his sides and his eyes seared.

 

“You back…. _Away_ … _From her,”_ said Carlisle’s voice, shaking with something beyond rage.

 

“And who the _fuck_ are you?” asked the drunkest guy, who didn’t look as worried as the others did.

 

“I believe I gave you an instruction,” Dr Cullen said loudly and clearly, his accent more pronounced as he spat his words through gritted teeth. “But to answer your question…”

 

He strode towards the man until he was right in his grill. Not so much Esme’s disney prince, more like the Terminator.

 

She didn’t think she’d ever appreciated quite how _big_ he looked.

 

“I am the _very_ end for you,” the doctor breathed menacingly, barely keeping it together. “If you are not out of my sight in…FIVE _….SECONDS!”_

 

The men jumped as their intruder’s voice reached a volume that shouldn’t have been possible, and while some primal part of their brains knew this threat wasn’t empty, they were so literally frozen in the Mercedes’ strangely-flickering headlights, they couldn’t move.

 

 _“GO!”_ Carlisle roared, lunging forwards at them so violently but so gracefully he became more of a dark shadow than a man.

 

Esme had never heard him shout. It was terrifying, like thunder. 

 

She felt the sound go right through her until she was shuddering.

 

“Esme, are you hurt?” he asked briskly, swooping down to where her legs had traitorously dumped her on the asphalt as her attackers bolted.

 

Dr Cullen examined her quickly, though he knew they hadn’t drawn blood. 

 

“Physically, I mean?” he added.

 

She shook her head, too stunned and too scared to speak.

 

“Then let’s get out of here before I rip their… _fucking_ heads off,” he growled, with Esme propped up against him before she could register the movement.

 

He opened the passenger door for her.

 

“In,” he commanded and, wordlessly, Esme obeyed. 

 

Wary of Carlisle though she was, she didn’t think she’d been happier to see anyone in her life.

 

Carlisle slammed his own door so hard the car rocked on its wheels, rammed in into gear and pulled away very fast, merging seamlessly with the traffic as soon as he hit the main road where he wove, one-handed, through the other cars.

 

The doctor didn’t speak until he was forced to stop at the lights, at which point he shoved the car angrily into neutral gear and started kneading his temples.

 

“Fuck,” he muttered, breathing heavily, eyes far away. “Will you _please_ say something to distract me.” 

 

“I-I-I…thought you were going to Italy,” Esme stammered, trying to pull herself out go the psychological vortex she was being sucked into.

 

The doctor turned to smile at her manically.

 

“Apparently not yet,” he said sarcastically.

 

“You should put your seatbelt on!” Esme then burst, as if by accident, noticing that he hadn’t bothered.

 

At this Carlisle laughed, and, instead of doing up his own belt, he reached across to slide Esme’s across her chest and clip it in place.

 

She didn’t think she was breathing.

 

“Are you alright, Essie?” he asked gently, face softening, as if this act of care had brought him round a little. “I mean, really?”

 

“Am I?” Esme breathed.

 

Carlisle turned back to the changing light in front of him and punched the car into gear before he revved it back into motion.

 

“Good question,” he grunted curtly, but this time Esme was certain his anger wasn’t directed at her.

 

“Carlisle, where are we going?” Esme whispered at last in a tearful voice as they drove out of town.

 

“I’m taking you home,” he told her in a businesslike way.

 

Esme gave a terrified sob.

 

 _“Your_ home,” he clarified quickly. “I think you’ve had enough adventure for one night.”

 

That she had.

 

Esme said nothing. Carlisle stole a worried glance at her and didn’t like what he saw.

 

It took Esme a moment to realise that the car wasn’t driving over hundreds upon hundreds of potholes, rather she was shaking violently and taking shallow and rather insufficient little breaths.

 

“...Can’t…I can’t breathe…” Esme panted, clawing at the scarf around her neck as if it were suffocating her. “Help…I can’t…”

 

“Hold on, Esme,” Carlisle said with practiced calm as he pulled over at a gas station.

 

“Oh God,” Esme said in a strangled voice.

 

“Hold on,” he repeated with his hand on Esme’s shoulder.

 

He stopped the engine and spun Esme in her seat to face him.

 

“Esme, you are safe, alright,” he said. “Perfectly safe. But I think you might be having a panic attack. Esme? Look at me.”

 

Carlisle took both her wrists gently, but firmly, in his hands.

 

“Alright,” he said in his calmest medical voice. “Now, Esme, you’re going to have to breathe for me. We’ll do it together. Watch me.”

 

Esme did, eyes huge with confusion and the overwhelming conviction that she was dying.

 

“…In…and out - You’re safe now, I promise - In…and out…”

 

She held his golden gaze and let _it_ hold _her_ as his voice washed around her like a wave over soft sand. 

 

“Great, you’re doing wonderfully, now breathe again…” he said softly as he mimicked her movements. “In…and out…”

 

Esme closed her eyes lightly.

 

In and out…in…and _out._

 

“Wonderful,” Carlisle smiled, as sensation crept back into Esme’s limbs and her eyes flickered open. “World champion breather.”

 

She took another breath. 

 

“Relax,” Carlisle sighed soothingly. “We’re both relaxed…”

 

Esme nodded.

 

“Yes,” she agreed very quietly.

 

Not buying it, Carlisle peered into her face, concentrating for a moment.

 

“You need some sugar,” he announced, using his famous doctor’s instinct, no doubt. “I’ll go into the store to get you some food. Wait in the car. It’s perfectly safe.”

 

Esme grabbed his wrist.

 

“Whatiftheycomeback?” she garbled urgently, feeling the press of bodies all around her.

 

“They won’t,” Carlisle assured her.

 

“How do you know?”

 

“I’ll hear them.”

 

Esme looked at her saviour. And you know what? She was sure he _would_ hear them.

 

“Alright, Essie?” Carlisle asked, battling the urge to both tuck a lock of loose hair behind her ear and commit seven very nasty murders.

 

His love didn’t look particularly ‘alright’.

 

“Look,” he said, suddenly inspired, fishing inside his jacket pocket for his phone.

 

He fiddled with it for a moment.

 

“Here…”

 

Carlisle gently pushed the phone into Esme’s trembling little hands. She saw he was on his timer app.

 

“Esme, I will be back…”

 

He set it up over her shoulder.

 

“…In exactly…three minutes,” he said triumphantly. “And you can time me. How does that sound?”

 

“Yeah…” Esme breathed, finding the English language suddenly extremely difficult.

 

“And while I’m in the store,” Carlisle whispered to her kindly. “I want you to have taken a big breath in and out every ten seconds, okay?”

 

She nodded a little vaguely, gaze wandering out of the windshield.

 

“Esme?” Carlisle said, giving her a tentative brush on the cheek to turn her head back to him. “I’m coming back, I promise. Big breaths. Watch the phone.”

 

“Okay,” she whispered in a tiny voice as he shut his door extra gently so as not to startle her.

 

She proceeded to fill her lungs with some more deep, soothing breaths as she watched him stride very purposefully into the store and probably make some store clerk’s night by doing something unexpected and sweet, which was his way.

 

He paused at the door and turned back to her to hold up three life-saving fingers.

 

Three minutes. A promise. 

 

Breathing as he had told her, Esme felt the scent of expensive leather car seats and that glorious minty one fill her up.

 

Esme remembered how that scent had wafted over her life a cloud as Carlisle had leant over her. 

 

_Before he went in the store…I’m all alone now…_

 

Esme’s breathing quickened but she looked at the phone in her hands, _his_ phone, which must be so often in his hands, and tried to calm herself, breathing as the doctor had told her, as she watched the tiny digits rush across the screen, documenting the unfortunate milliseconds that Carlisle wasn’t there.

 

Carlisle who had possibly done terrible things, _killed_ people…but then had just saved her from a fate, in her eyes, much worse than that.

 

He was forgiven. She was crazy, but she had forgiven him.

 

He wasn’t the one she was really afraid of. He wasn’t those men. He wasn’t…

 

_Esme isn’t in Carlisle’s car anymore…she’s in the passenger seat of Charles’ big pickup…_

 

_…He’s yelling about something….not her, this time…but something…he’s getting too angry…_

 

_Oh no!…he’s starting the engine. He can’t drive in this state!_

 

_He’s going too fast!_ **_Way_ ** _too fast!_

 

_Esme’s terrified…she’s shouting that she doesn’t want to die…because she thinks maybe Charles does, the way he’s driving…_

 

_She’s actually pleading with him now, but he’s high off how much power he has. He could kill them both if he wanted…and she can’t do a damn thing._

 

_Maniac? Hell fucking_ **_yeah_ ** _I’m a maniac, Esme!_

 

_She says something desperate…she really wants him to slow down…and he does now, slams on the breaks and she screams._

 

_He gets out and wrenches her door open._

 

_You wanna get out of the fucking car, Esme?_ **_Huh?_ ** _Okay then, I think you’re coming out of the_ **_fucking_ ** _car…_

 

_He grabs her by the waist and she remembers the pretty pattern the sidewalk makes on her cheek after it’s pressed into it for so long…_

 

Esme jumped when she heard the door open and the timer chime at the same instant.

 

“Just me,” Carlisle said softly as the restorative smell of chocolate filled the car.

 

“Hello,” Esme breathed, sounding very young and remembering the bruises she got that day a place _nobody_ should ever have bruises.

 

“For you, madam,” the doctor said showing her what he had bought. “We have hot chocolate, and one tunafish and cheese sandwich.”

 

Esme was shaking a little less but her hand gave a tremor as she lifted the take-out cup to her mouth.

 

Somewhere in the distant past, she remembered being told not to drink things strangers give you but Carlisle wasn’t a stranger anymore. Not after what he had just done for her.

 

“Here,” Carlisle said, sliding his cold hand over her own to help her drink.

 

Despite her state, Esme felt the tenderness in his action and relaxed a little.

 

“There we go,” the doctor said, smiling. “Superstar, Esme, you’re doing fantastically.”

 

He frowned.

 

“You’re freezing,” he muttered. “I’ll get the heater on.”

 

Carlisle took off his heavy leather jacket and handed it to her. The minty-ness made Esme’s head spin.

 

“T-thank you,” she stammered as he fiddled with the car’s controls, struck again by how incredibly… _incredible_ he was being. “Thank you… _thank_ you.”

 

“It’s nothing,” Carlisle said, looking away modestly and starting the engine.

 

 _No,_ Esme thought. _It’s not._

 

Carlisle pulled back onto the main road and supervised the little sips Esme was talking from the drink, and soon enough, as he had hoped, her blood began to smell healthier.

 

God…her _blood…_

 

“How did you know where I was?” Esme asked, a little bolder with her half-empty cup, making Carlisle, thankfully, jump out of his thoughts. “What was…what was happening?”

 

The doctor looked at her.

 

“What’s the expression?” he said. “‘Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear’?”

 

Esme nodded.

 

“Then something like that,” he nodded. “Here, eat your sandwich.”

 

Carlisle reached over, skilfully unwrapped the sandwich one-handed (the man was good with his hands, after all) and offered it to Esme.

 

“My favourite, thanks,” she sighed before biting into the bread and realising how damn hungry she was.

 

“So I figured,” Carlisle said with a grin, pleased his offering had been well-received. “That’s what you have most days.”

 

“How did you even notice that?” Esme asked, shielding her full mouth with her hand. “We never eat together.”

 

She shot the driver an apologetic look.

 

“Does it really stink out the office that bad?”

 

Carlisle laughed, relieved that she was feeling a little more like herself.

 

Esme felt as though her insides were floating somewhere above the car.

 

“Nope, don’t worry,” Carlisle chuckled with the crinkles around his eyes that Esme couldn’t quite look away from. “I just…noticed that’s what you had…I’m…”

 

He sighed and the crinkles tragically vanished again.

 

“I really haven’t been a very good co-worker to you, have I?” he said, real regret in his voice.

 

“Sometimes you are,” Esme said quietly. “On your gold eye days.”

 

The doctor huffed a laugh.

 

“On my ‘gold eye’ days, yes.”

 

There was silence as the forest whipped past them, indistinguishable to Esme from the black sky.

 

“I thought I’d be conscientious and look up the medical condition that would cause yellowing of the eyes and mood changes,” Esme said, before she could think better of it. “Sensitivity to sunlight.”

 

“I don’t have liver failure, I promise,” Carlisle told her with a rueful smile.

 

“No, I didn’t think you had.”

 

“So, what’s your verdict?” he asked her. “Am I doomed?”

 

“I…didn’t find anything that seemed to…fit you,” Esme said carefully.

 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Carlisle replied.

 

“Do you…have a…bipolarity?” Esme tried sensitively.

 

“Of a kind…” the doctor admitted, lifting his hand off the wheel in a strange kind of shrug.

 

“That’s not your fault,” Esme said quickly, not wanting to upset him.

 

“True, this isn’t the life I would have chosen,” he said softly, studying his own hand on the wheel. “And, if I may, now we’re on the subject…”

 

He gave Esme a purse-lipped glance, though it was more understanding than judgemental.

 

“I’ve noticed that sometimes day-to-day things can seem a little…challenging for you,” he finished delicately, his arched eyebrow begging elaboration.

 

Esme gave a sweet little sniffle.

 

“Um, yeah…I…”

 

She took a deep shaky breath. She’d tell him. 

 

Suddenly, looking into his beautiful eyes, she realised she could tell him _anything._

 

“I suffer from…compulsion,” she said, sounding strangely robotic. “Anxiety. Panic attacks and…flashbacks.”

 

The remembered the feeling of her cheek in the dusty Phoenix asphalt and her whole body trembled.

 

“I mean…b- _bad_ stuff and…I…I don’t know what to _do…”_

 

“Oh _Esme,”_ Carlisle whispered, neglecting the road completely to study his companion, his body singing with pain on her behalf.

 

“I hoped you wouldn’t have noticed,” she continued thickly. “But…”

 

She gave a teary little shrug.

 

“You do _so_ well, Esme, really,” Carlisle told her seriously. “And honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t know what it was like to hide things about oneself.”

 

Esme turned to him, wondering if now she would get a confession of murder, which on top of everything else that day, would probably be the icing on the fucking cake.

 

“Is the anxiety the reason you walk in the woods?” he asked instead.

 

Esme gave a bitter laugh.

 

“Yeah. But I dunno…”

 

She picked at her empty cup and gave another dark, humourless chuckle.

 

“Maybe I just like bad things happening to me.”

 

 _“I_ don’t like bad things happening to you,” Carlisle said quickly and perhaps a little too ardently.

 

Silence descended once again.

 

“Look, I don’t want to pry,” Carlisle said at last. “…So I’m not even going to ask. But Esme…if you ever wanted to talk to someone about what you’re going through…I think you’d be surprised how much of it I would understand. You can talk to me, you know? Not as a _doctor,_ as your _friend.”_

 

Esme wiped her eyes.

 

“Are we friends?” she whispered with a watery smile, strangely hopeful they might be.

 

“I’d like to be,” the doctor replied solemnly. “More than anything, Esme. You are an _extraordinary_ person and I am…I am privileged to know you. Seriously.”

 

Esme gave a choked laugh.

 

“Says you!” she sniffled. “You’re like a _god!_ Or some beautiful creature from European folklore.”

 

“Do you believe in that stuff?” Carlisle asked interestedly, ignoring the compliment from _Esme,_ of all people, in the interest of keeping his ego small enough to fit in the car. “Folklore?”

 

Esme shifted under his jacket.

 

“I suppose,” she said, not knowing how intently her listener was paying attention. 

 

“Do you believe in aliens?” he tried. _“ET_ kind of thing?”

 

“Yes,” Esme said softly. “Why _would_ we be alone amongst billions of stars?”

 

“Fair enough,” he answered. “What about…ghosts?”

 

He chuckled.

 

“I know _I_ do.”

 

Esme chuckled too, thinking the conversation was being steered towards calmer waters, though the opposite was true.

 

“Naturally,” with as much humour as she could muster.

 

“Mythology?” Carlisle asked, the road in front of him forgotten completely now.

 

“To a point,” she told him. “…It all has basis in fact, right?”

 

“Indeed,” he said, biting his lip which seemed like an odd habit for a man like him to have. “Reincarnation, then?”

 

“Yes,” Esme said after a moment. “Or I’d like to.”

 

Carlisle sucked in a breath.

 

 _“I_ do,” he whispered.

 

His gaze became scorching as he studied her face - a face he had first seen lifetimes ago.

 

“I _certainly_ do.”

 

Esme met his eyes quizzically. He was trying to tell her something, she was sure, to speak with his eyes…those unusual _golden_ eyes…

 

“Carlisle?” she asked as he prepared himself for what was now inevitable. “Do you believe…in immortality?”

 

She saw the spasm cross the doctor’s face.

 

Busted.

 

“No,” he answered, surprising her. “Nothing is immortal. Nothing but God.”

 

“What _do_ you believe in, then?” she asked him gently. “Besides reincarnation and ghosts?”

 

There was a long silence, so long she thought he might not have been listening or she’d annoyed him, but then he spoke.

 

“The truth.”

 

Esme paused to think about that for a moment while he grinned.

 

“And very fast cars…”

 

Esme didn’t know why he had said that until she followed his inclined head and turned to look out of the window. She gasped as she realised where they were.

 

“Whoa! ‘Welcome to Forks’, already!” she spluttered, amazed she hadn’t felt the speed. “How fast were we _going?”_

 

“Ah!” Carlisle laughed. “But was the road moving while we were staying still?”

 

Esme raised an amused eyebrow.

 

“I have two very philosophical sons,” Carlisle explained with a fond smile. “Along with…ah…one _not_ so philosophical one.” 

 

He shrugged in mock defeat.

 

“I suppose it’s my fault, really, for buying the little buggers all those books.”

 

At this, Esme laughed loudly and genuinely which masked the vampire’s sigh of relief.

 

She was going to be alright.

 

“Esme,” Carlisle said quietly in the eerie silence after he cut the engine outside her home. “When I get back to work on Wednesday, we can talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know about me and I’ll tell you why I behave the way I do, which isn’t in a normal way, I know that.”

 

“Thank you, Carlisle,” she said earnestly before she got out of the car. “For saving me. For helping me…”

 

She gave Carlisle his favourite smile in the world.

 

“…And for being my friend.”

 

His eyes burned up at her from the dark interior of the car.

 

“No, thank _you,_ Esme,” he said inexplicably, before careering away down the road.


	21. What Happened In The Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all!
> 
> Anyone forgotten the dead college kids in the woods?
> 
> Well, the wolves certainly haven't, that's for sure...

“Tell me again,” Sue Clearwater said, kneading her temples. “What happened in the woods?”

 

Since Dīs Pater was out of town, the wolves felt safe enough to hold the tribal meeting, well overdue, to discuss some tragically premature deaths.

 

Sam was the one to speak.

 

“A few of us were on routine patrol around the Rez boundary,” he began in a passable imitation of Billy’s commandingly calm voice. “When Embry got lost and-”

 

“I didn’t get _lost!”_ Embry protested. “I was scouting the area!”

 

“-Alright, who was ‘scouting the area’-”

 

“And thank the gods I did!” Embry added.

 

“Yeah,” Jacob said, wide-eyed. “Thank the gods you did!”

 

“I’m _sorry!”_ Sam bristled. _“Who_ is pack leader here?”

 

A sheepish silence settled around the fire.

 

“Embry was in no-man’s-land when he caught the fresh scent of pretty much all the leeches on the same trail,” Sam continued when he’d glowered long enough at the rest of his pack. “Recent scents, but scattered like they were all running.”

 

“Fucking leeches!” Paul spat helpfully.

 

Billy silenced him with a look.

 

“Go on, Sam,” he invited.

 

“We followed the scents and arrived at a clearing,” Sam told him before taking a deep breath. “When we got to the clearing, the hikers were already dead.”

 

“And the Cold Ones were there?” Harry Clearwater asked.

 

Sam nodded.

 

“The blond one who’s a bit of a loose cannon was snarling at everyone,” he said with a frown. “Blood all over his face and the big one and his mate were having this massive domestic amongst the bodies.”

 

“Why?” Sue asked him.

 

“From what we could hear, the blond male killed four of the hikers before anyone could stop him, then the big dark-haired male had some kind of mind-fuck and snapped the necks of the other two to ‘erase witnesses’.”

 

Harry Clearwater’s head fell into his hands.

 

“Christ,” he muttered.

 

“His girlfriend was pissed off that he’d forgotten she could just hypnotise them to forget the whole thing,” Sam finished.

 

“So, psycho blondie’s snarling with a full belly and blood-red eyes,” Jacob recapped helpfully. “Hulk and the blonde bitch are rowing, the brunette female is just standing there chewing her nails, the mind-reader’s pacing and wringing his hands, as if that’s any fucking help, and the little future-telling witch is just sitting the ground laughing her fucking little ass off!”

 

“Language, Jacob!” Billy warned.

 

“It was a mess!”

 

“What then? Did you attack?” demanded Sue. “Tell us everything, please, it’s important.”

 

“We were going to,” Sam said slowly. “But…”

 

“Yeah, then the doctor arrived and he went nuts,” Paul said, with a vaguely stunned look on his face. “I mean, _really_ lost his shit…”

 

“And then we ran away,” finished Seth chirpily.

 

“We made a _tactical retreat,”_ Sam corrected the younger and more junior wolf regally.

 

Embry snorted.

 

“Maybe _you_ did, but I’ll tell you, the rest of us just fucking _ran,”_ he said. “That was the scariest shit I have _ever_ seen.”

 

“It was like the whole world just stopped for a moment and then all this dark smoke kept coming out of him!” Leah said with an expression of distaste as if this were very bad manners.

 

“And the ground was shaking!” Quil reminded the pack, slightly awestruck.

 

“Yeah!” Seth agreed. “And his face was like…”

 

The boy mangled his face with his palms to resemble that of a gargoyle.

 

“Alright! Enough!” Billy called, uncharacteristically agitated. “Please stop that! He knows when you talk about him.”

 

“What, seriously?” his son asked, tearing his eyes away from Seth’s grotesque reenactment.

 

“Speak of the devil…” Sue muttered to herself with the sarcasm her daughter was better known for.

 

“But he’s in Europe right now!” Quil said, flabbergasted.

 

“Which is why we go to their nest now,” Paul hissed with a hungry look on his narrow face. “Whip their asses while daddy’s not home and face him alone.”

 

“It doesn’t work like that,” Harry said darkly.

 

“Uh, sure it does!” Jared spluttered, uncharacteristically choosing to speak. “They broke the treaty! They killed _six_ humans!”

 

“That doesn’t matter,” Billy said solemnly.

 

“But…they made the treaty?” Sam said, hesitantly peeking at Billy in case he was incorrect.

 

Billy nodded.

 

“But it was a courtesy,” he said gruffly. “He knows we can’t stand against him and he’s chosen to call our bluff.”

 

“But this is all out war!” Paul burst, outraged that nobody seemed to be as outraged as he was.

 

Jacob nodded furiously.

 

“First not one but _six_ humans dead,” Jacob cried, voice raising in pitch and volume with every word in his indignation. “Then _Dīs Pater_ comes here in his brand new _2018 Mercedes-Benz S-Class Facelift, with custom wheel arches, adjusted steering and off-road tyres_ (imported from India, by the way), with his metaphorical hand in Esme Swan’s panties!”

 

Jacob then remembered the more grievous offence the doctor had committed,

 

 _“And_ carrying my half-dead dog!” he half-shrieked.

 

“There is nothing we can do,” Billy whispered, looking strangely sad.

 

“We have to do _something!”_ spluttered Jacob with Paul’s head nodding like a windshield toy next to him.

 

“Jacob, there is _nothing_ we can do,” Harry said with his doleful eyes downcast.

 

“He _drugged_ my _dog!”_

 

“The purpose of the wolves, first and foremost, is to protect this tribe,” Sue said, shooting a look at her two children gathered around the fire. “We can’t fight them.”

 

 _“He keeps sedatives in his goddamn car!_ Uh, _hello?”_

 

“Please, Jacob,” said his father wearily.

 

“Why did the blond male attack?” Quil asked Billy interestedly after the man had cast his eyes to the heavens for strength. “I thought they could control it.”

 

“That one is the empath,” Billy said carefully, (and unsure that ‘empath’ was a good word to use when referring to bloodsuckers). “Meaning he feels the bloodlust of everyone around him, so, in theory, it’s seven times more difficult for him to maintain restraint.” 

 

“But why now?” Embry asked.

 

“I…believe…” Billy began slowly, looking a little unsure as to whether or not he should continue. “The leader is currently…struggling with his bloodlust.”

 

“Wait, the _surgeon?”_ laughed the pack’s only female member. “Oh this is just _too_ fucking good. Fuck _me.”_

 

“Leah!” hissed her mother.

 

“What happened to his ‘legendary control’?” Leah continued regardless. “If his bloodlust is so strong it can drive his family to kill?”

 

Billy looked very thoughtful for a moment. In the end it was Leah’s own father who spoke.

 

“I have heard storied of Cold Ones being overcome by the scent of a specific human,” he said. “We think this is what is happening now, to him.”

 

“Well? Who is it then?” Paul demanded.

 

“I think we all know,” Sue said softly, with genuine regret.

 

Jacob’s face crumpled.

 

“No,” he whispered, understanding the sudden sadness.

 

“Yes,” Billy confirmed.

 

“Who?” Leah asked rudely.

 

“Esme Swan,” Jacob told her.

 

“Who’s that?”

 

“Is that the chief’s sister?” Seth wondered.

 

“He has a _sister?”_ Paul said with a furrowed brow. “No he doesn’t.”

 

“No, yeah, it totally is,” Embry said. “The hot one. You’d know her.”

 

“She was at the bonfire!” Seth remembered excitedly. “Then she got scared and left.”

 

“Jacob’s girlfriend!” Embry continued slyly, nudging Jacob’s arm.

 

“Shut up, man!” Jacob huffed back angrily, retaliating with extra force.

 

“Nah, she’s Cheetos’ girl,” Quil said dotingly as the dog lifted his head from Jacob’s lap to join the conversation. “Look, he’s actually listening after you said her name.”

 

“No, because _you_ said _his_ name, idiot!” Leah hissed to him.

 

“Quiet!” Billy shouted, losing his patience and being jarringly reminded of how young the ‘protectors of the tribe’ actually were, despite their size.

 

He sighed.

 

“Yes,” Billy continued. “Esme _Swan_ is, shock horror, a relation of Chief _Swan.”_

 

“Dīs Pater has been following her,” Sue said gravely. “And that day in the forest…we believe he was hunting her.”

 

There was a heavy silence, broken at last by the pack leader.

 

“Maybe…maybe we should let him have her?” Sam suggested, open-mindedly. “If it will make the killings stop?”

 

Billy shook his head.

 

“No, we do not sacrifice anyone,” he told the man.

 

Sue and Harry caught one another’s eye and then looked down. Personally, they would both be willing for Esme to have a little accident in the woods if it meant their children survived.

 

“But…the story of the third wife tells up that sometimes sacrifice is for the greater good,” Sam argued.

 

“Nazi,” Leah muttered under her breath as Jacob dislodged Cheetos and sprang to his feet.

 

“You say that again…” he snarled at his leader, trembling.

 

“That’s murder!” Quil cried.

 

“You wanna give her up to those freaks, Sam!” Paul shouted. “You wanna let him _do_ that to her? That is disgusting! WHY AREN’T WE ATTACKING HIM?”

 

Billy took in a breath

 

“Alright, this is what were dealing with,” he said, his voice strangely ashy as he met the trembling gaze of the furious Paul. “Now, this man…”

 

His deep eyes twinkled seriously in the firelight for a moment as he weighed and selected his careful words.

 

“When he first came here, it was before my time, but my father saw what happened to Old Quil Ateara. I was told very clearly how our old chief died.”

 

Billy tilted his head to one side.

 

“On the battlefield, you might stand in front of Dīs Pater, and he’ll rot you alive. You will turn to bloody, mouldering dust where you stand.”

 

Billy tilted his head the other way.

 

“Contrastingly,” he said with exaggerated lightness. “He’ll be sitting at home watching the evening news, and your windpipe will suddenly seize up and you’ll suffocate to death.”

 

The eyes around the fire were unblinkingly fixed on Billy’s face.

 

“Or maybe,” the man continued. “He’ll be sitting in his hotel room across the Atlantic, and a commercial airline flight happens to fall out out the sky on to your house while you are sleeping.”

 

“You are _joking,”_ Quil said, agape.

 

“If I were, it wouldn’t be funny,” Billy said looking pale. “This is what we’re up against.”

 

“Hey, and if that was me, I’d buy myself a fancy car too,” Harry said bitterly. “When he decides your number’s up, it’s up. The world is his fucking casino.”

 

“And the stakes are too high,” Billy said, following Sue’s scorching eyes, his gaze settling on her babies. “I won’t let any wolf here gamble away their life. I’m afraid Esme’s on her own.”

 


	22. The Elephant Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, folks, a slightly different sort of chapter.
> 
> Let me take you back to London in the year of our Lord 1630, to tell you the story of the Elephant Boy.
> 
> Poor little guy…

Elephants never forget, that’s the phrase, isn’t it?

 

They have very advanced memories compared to most other animals, don’t they? 

 

Well, I can tell you, this particular trait of elephants wasn’t known to the people of seventeenth-century London. In fact, the only records of elephants were vague and dated back to the crusades.

 

Children discussed them excitedly in the way the children of today admire the likes of Megatron or a T-rex.

 

They were monsters! Beasts!

 

It was one day that the baker’s son, (who was extremely wise and _always_ right because he had once seen the seaside), was knowledgeably explaining what an elephant looked like, that the local children found out. 

 

“Like a monster…with a huge snout and big flappy ears!” he said to his enraptured audience. “And it would _eat_ you!”

 

His eyes slyly found the object of many a public humiliation.

 

“I suppose they look like Carlisle!” he added as a cruel afterthought, as all the other heads turned to follow his gaze.

 

And there it was forevermore. Carlisle Cullen the pastor’s son.

 

The Elephant Boy.

 

In years to come, in a future inconceivable to Carlisle as a child, he would in fact see a herd of elephants and would vow never again to be ashamed by the comparison, for they were the most noble and gentle of beasts. He wept dry tears in fact, almost as passionately as he cried as the other children began to laugh and jeer.

 

Elephant boy! Elephant boy!

 

But maybe it was true, bless him. At six, he was a round little fellow with pudgy limbs and strawy hair and perhaps he hadn’t quite grown into his nose and ears. His skin varied from pink to grey, depending upon how flustered he was and how old the marks from his father’s belt were - the badges of Carlisle’s pridefulness.

 

Carlisle, as you can imagine, was not in fact prideful. It was just he was extremely, almost worryingly, intelligent.

 

He was quick to read, quick to add and quick to notice that all wasn’t well.

 

“Gosh he’s bright!” people would exclaim as Carlisle performed another piece of mathematical genius, sheepishly retreating before he could be thanked.

 

Carlisle did not revel in his intellectual skill. He was blessed as few others were at his age with knowing when to keep his oddity to himself. 

 

That’s not to say, however, that nobody _noticed._

 

One day, a man passed by while Carlisle was checking a merchant’s accounts after helping Mary, the blind girl, onto the back of her father’s cart. Mary, naturally, would have been horrified to know that the monster was helping her but, of course, she couldn't see him.

 

“You’d make a wonderful maester, you know,” the man commented as he noted Carlisle’s quick mind and the respectful way he spoke to the man he was helping over the top of the merchant’s modest offerings. “I am one myself.”

 

“A maester?” Carlisle asked looking up at the man.

 

“Healing, my boy! Medicine!” the man laughed. “I see it in you!”

 

Carlisle blushed.

 

“No, I couldn’t,” he mumbled. “I will give my life to the Church, to follow God.”

 

The man chuckled.

 

“God doesn’t just live in a church, boy.”

 

Leaving little Carlisle to ponder this odd, and perhaps rather blasphemous, nugget of wisdom, the man left the troubled youth to…well, his troubles.

 

Hmmm, yes.

 

You see, Carlisle endured the stares of the townsfolk all his human life. The _ugly elephant,_ he would tell himself, ashamed, as people, particularly women, stared. 

 

However, what people repeatedly _failed_ to mention to Carlisle, who did not look in mirrors for fear of pridefulness (but mostly the memory of his father’s knuckles), by the time he was sixteen he could have kissed the queen of France and been forgiven. 

 

They were staring at his _beauty,_ not the monster he thought he resembled.

 

But that burden did not weigh as heavily on the poor boy as another.

 

It was shameful, Carlisle’s interest in science, his curiosity for myth and legend and his strange lust for the darkness. However, outright _scandalous_ would have been Carlisle’s…affliction, (had anyone found out about it, and his father ensured they wouldn’t).

 

It was one day that the other children, whom Carlisle rarely saw, had been particularly contemptuous of his big feet.

 

Upset (as any poor seven-year-old would be), Carlisle retreated to his father’s chilly church to pray.

 

He whispered his prayers to God fervently, so fervently, in fact, that he must not have heard the woman enter the empty church and sit on one of the front benches.

 

“And father, forgive me for my sins,” Carlisle whispered. “I’m not ungrateful…and the world is so vast and wondrous, or so I’ve heard, I just feel so… _lonely_ and-”

 

“Carlisle,” spoke the woman and the boy jumped.

 

She was not young, but not old and had a kindly face and, though Carlisle didn’t know it, his eyes.

 

“Yes, madam?” he answered politely, still a little startled.

 

“Carlisle, _please,_ it breaks my heart to hear you say such things,” she sighed sadly.

 

The boy blushed.

 

“Sorry, madam,” he muttered, then went to apologise for muttering but he was cut off by the woman’s soft voice.

 

“Carlisle, my love, do you know who I am?” she asked him gently.

 

He shook his head where it was bowed in respectful submission.

 

She chuckled.

 

“Well you won’t find out looking at the ground.”

 

He tentatively lifted his gaze.

 

“Carlisle, you are my son,” she told him with the inviting, truthful eyes they shared widening earnestly.

 

“Mary?” Carlisle gasped, for a moment letting his natural inquisitiveness shine through.

 

She chuckled.

 

“No, my lovely boy! _Anne!”_ she exclaimed reaching for her little boy. “Your mother, Anne Cullen!”

 

 _“Mother?”_ Carlisle squeaked, throwing himself into her arms.

 

“Yes, it’s me…” she whispered, pressing her face into his precious hair. “Oh _Carlisle.”_

 

He sniffled, awash with emotions he had no words for, and no comparisons to.

 

His _mother._

 

“Now listen,” Anne said, a little thickly. “I hear you’re a very clever boy.”

 

“Yes, Mother,” Carlisle answered.

 

He immediately cringed. 

 

“I mean, no, Mother. I am merely a servant of God.”

 

“Carlisle, my son, you are no servant,” she said sternly, tapping little Carlisle on his nose. “You are _clever._ One of a kind, and you should be able to say so, lest your gifts be wasted. God wouldn’t want his gifts _wasted,_ would he?”

 

“But…I shouldn’t want to be prideful…” Carlisle whispered back with wide, teary eyes.

 

The ghost of a woman took his ruddy cheeks in her freezing, papery palms.

 

“My darling boy,” she said passionately. “Carlisle Cullen. You are _extraordinary._ And in the future you will have plenty you should be proud of. You will find a wonderful wife, and will have wonderful children and you will love them all very dearly. _I_ am proud of you, Carlisle.”

 

 _That_ was a strange thing for someone to say…

 

The boy’s brow furrowed as the barrage of questions he was known, (and disciplined) for pushed against the dam of restraint.

 

Where had she been?…And was she well?…And why did father say she had died?…Had he _lied?_ For lying was a sin, wasn’t it?…Or did father not know?…And would mother live with him now and hug him every day and tell him she was proud of him?…

 

Only one question was voiced.

 

“Will you speak to father?” Carlisle asked excitedly, tugging her arm. 

 

Anne shook her head with her eyes lowered.

 

Carlisle frowned.

 

“Why do you look so sad?” he asked with the sensitivity of very few children his age.

 

“Carlisle,” she whispered, taking a big musty breath. “Your father wouldn’t see me.”

 

“What? Why? But he’s an enlightened and Godly man,” Carlisle recited dutifully.

 

“It’s only you, sweetheart,” his mother murmured. “To everyone else, I would be but a gust of wind.”

 

She chuckled sadly.

 

“Did I not say you had gifts?”

 

And, with horror, and a fair dose of wonder, Carlisle began to realise why the other children laughed at him so.

 

The old man he said hello to every morning had died five years prior and poor blind Mary had drowned in the bathtub when she was only four.

 

 _I can see the dead,_ he thought numbly. _I speak to the dead. I’m…unholy._

 

Tearfully bidding goodbye to his mother, Carlisle returned to his home, and, ignoring his mother’s last piece of advice, he told his father what he had discovered.

 

He’d never been hit so hard in all his life. And from that moment on, Carlisle changed.

 

Even as he grew in strength and beauty, there was something untouchable about him. He never married, never knew a woman’s touch and every day his father whispered to Carlisle that he was the devil, that some evil had lodged itself within him.

 

Scorned by the living, Carlisle turned to the dead for company from whom he learned things, dark things. 

 

The dead shared with Carlisle their tales of injustice to the point that he became so angry he couldn’t sleep at night for days on end.

 

…Like how the butcher kicked the dogs, and Mary’s fox-like sister had walked her through the urine on purpose and how the children tormented the beggars. How great swathes of people starved and animals were slaughtered for their horns and people, living breathing, _conscious_ people were sold as slaves.

 

In fact, when the time came, Carlisle was more then happy to seek out the so-called monsters in the sewers. Apart from his fascination with witches and vampires and the like, and his growing desperation to finally appease his old father before he passed away, they were hurting people. 

 

And that made him so angry he thought he would catch alight.

 

Carlisle knew enough to find the beasts who were living in the sewers. However, his well researched arsenal of garlic, holy water, stakes and silver proved disappointingly ineffective against the vampires’ diamond skin and the elephant boy watched his party being slaughtered. 

 

Carlisle was petrified.

 

But more than that, he was furious.

 

The bullied and downtrodden were his people, his family. Just like the young musician dying of Spanish flu, the girl raped and left for dead in an alley and the man mauled to death by a bear, all for trying to feed his starving family.

 

He turned to the vampire pair who were snarling at him while the ghosts of the newly-departed souls joined the chorus in his mind.

 

“You had. No right,” Carlisle said, voice shaking.

 

The male vampire smirked, while the female looked oddly uneasy.

 

“John?” she asked the more feral of the beasts. “Who is that?”

 

“It’s a bloody fool, that’s who,” he replied, and Carlisle jumped as the beast conjured a ribbon of flames from his fingertips and started to weave it absently through the air.

 

“John, I don’t like this,” she said shakily. “We should go.”

 

“Run?” the man leered. “From _him?”_

 

He scoffed and, before Carlisle could blink, the man was upon him.

 

As Carlisle’s head hit the shit-swept floor, the man dived his head into him, chewing at his midriff to reach his deep abdominal artery and feed.

 

The action was so disgusting, so horribly invasive, and so horribly _painful_ that Carlisle shrieked like a demon. Surely his god could not allow this?

 

However, instead of draining Carlisle dry, (as the young man hoped so the pain might end), the beast seized up suddenly and wretched, as if Carlisle’s blood were poison.

 

“Stop! Stop!” cried the woman desperately, staring wide-eyed at the pastor’s son, rather than her beast of a mate. “What are you doing to him?”

 

Carlisle barely noticed her question, for where the man had savaged him, now came the worst searing pain imaginable. It shot through his body life hellfire.

 

Carlisle screamed and the two beasts turned and ran, but the deed was done.

 

We’ll not go into the change. We all know. And we can all imagine how terrifying it would be to endure it alone, in the dark, with only the bodies of your neighbours for company.

 

However, when the pain stopped, Carlisle found himself…oddly comfortable, as if for the first time his body was sufficient to house him.

 

But he felt _it._ The burn, the thirst.

 

He understood, then, why the beasts fed in the way they did. He wanted to himself - fall upon the corpses of his childhood tormentors and drink.

 

His hands reached in front of him like two pale spiders.

 

He felt the energy on his skin.

 

Whatever he was now, it wasn’t an elephant.

 

He let out a guttural snarl and leapt upon the nearest body, cradling it to his chest, almost like a lover.

 

If there was a reason he should’t do this, he had forgotten it. His mouth was almost to the dead man’s throat when he heard the echo of a voice. 

 

A memory? An apparition? A conscience?

 

_Carlisle, my darling boy…you are no monster…_

 

He hesitated, looked at the man’s face and stood up. Once on his feet, the monster started walking and didn’t stop.

 

Out of the city he walked, north, following the Earth’s magnetism like it was a ribbon of very gentle sound. 

 

The whole world was open to him now. He saw all, he smelt all, heard, felt and tasted it, sometimes all together. It was like an explosion of synesthesia.

 

There were smells, sensations and colours he had no words for. It was glorious! This power, this speed…

 

He felt lusts as he had never done before. To explore, to climb, to bury his nose in every flower and bathe in every river. 

 

God! If not for the thirst, it would be heaven! If only there walked hither a human so he could sate his-

 

No. 

 

Absolutely not.

 

He would not betray his God in that way. He would not murder.

 

So, giving thanks for the gift that God had granted him, to know the Earth so intimately, Carlisle devised ways to destroy himself.

 

But they, um…well, they didn’t really… _work._

 

The pastor’s son despaired!

 

How could he live, knowing he was a danger to his fellow ma- I mean, to humans?

 

He was _so_ thirsty he could kill his own father! If only there were another…

 

The next thing Carlisle knew, there came a brief whimper from his arms and a torrent of soothing liquid was gushing down his searing throat. 

 

He drew away to see a deer mangled in his grip and realised that there _was_ another way.

 

But the twists and turns of fate just couldn’t leave him in peace it seemed, for Carlisle was nearly to the Hebrides when he smelled the sugary tang he somehow knew to be other vampires. 

 

Toffee apples, sweet cinders and authority. 

 

He met the other vampires with dignity, and nodded his polite understanding that he would be marched to Italy to stand trial and be ‘evaluated’.

 

Funnily enough, those few days of running with the guards, Felix and Demetri, were the best of Carlisle’s life. His eyes were round with wonder at each new thing he saw. The colour of the sky, the smell of lavender fields…

 

It was so beautiful that Carlisle was almost tempted to plead for his life, but, knowing he was a monster, he decided he would take the inevitable punishment in silence.

 

Whatever his crown of thorns, he would wear it.

 

Before long, Carlisle’s enthusiasm for the scenery of Europe rubbed off on his captors who, after deciding that the newborn was completely out of his mind, (he hunted deer and… _chickens_ for Christ’s sake) decided to befriend him, and the party travelled in rather pleasant companionship. 

 

So, really it was a pity, what happened…

 

Anyway, they arrived in Volterra, and, after the curious newborn had had a good look at all the buildings, he was brought before, what passed in the vampire world, as a court.

 

“That’s him,” said a female behind the three vampires who clearly led the establishment, conspicuously alone. “He killed John.”

 

The leader of this new, sinister group of people stepped forwards interestedly.

 

“There is no punishment for a human who has killed a vampire,” he said, eyeing the newborn greedily.

 

“But he isn’t human now!” the woman cried, distraught.

 

“Quite right,” hissed the blond leader who despised and feared all he didn’t know.

 

From the look on his face, Carlisle knew he had been victorious in his quest.

 

He was going to die.

 

The dark-haired leader nodded his ascent.

 

In hindsight, Aro wished that he had granted Carlisle a trial and delved into the newborn’s mind. That way he might have foreseen the…well, what happened, and understood exactly who the young vampire was.

 

As it was, arrogance won the battle with curiosity and so, after a few rounds of Jane’s torture, Felix and Demetri were summoned fourth to execute the newborn.

 

And that’s when the accident happened, and everything changed. 

 

Carlisle realised very quickly that he wasn’t normal, even in this world of the _abnormal._

 

‘Not being normal’ he could cope with, but being _dangerous…_

 

Now, that was a different kind of problem.

 

I can’t speak for Carlisle’s feelings at this point - the only person who could apart form the man himself, wouldn’t (having too much respect for his father).

 

But we can certainly tell you what happened.

 

Carlisle left Volterra, quickly, that is, and travelled the world.

 

He studied medicine, he travelled to America, he made himself a life and a family and then fell in love with his beautiful Esme.

 

But the Volturi…

 

Gah! They were never out of his bloody hair, were they?

 


	23. Mrs Swan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Carlisle :)
> 
> And for me, Carlisle is a cross between Alexander Skarsgård in True Blood and Tom Hiddleston in the Night Manager series, both of whom I think really appear in this chapter.
> 
> Hope you like it!

Many lifetimes away, and after both a very long flight and a very long drive, Carlisle looked out of a window of the smartest hotel in Pisa.

 

The city glittered below him and he stood like a king before his kingdom, surveying the creatures that scurried like ants below him, going about their evening business.

 

Carlisle’s business was finished here.

 

Turning from the view, he washed, dressed, and ordered the suite meticulously so that there would be no evidence that a second presence had been there that evening.

 

As a final gesture, he slowly leaned in and kissed the russet neck of the woman sleeping in the bed they’d just shared.

 

“Gratzie,” he whispered against the shell of her ear, with genuine affection, playing with a lock of hair over her bare back before swooping out of the room, coat slung carelessly over his shoulder.

 

He strode into the marble lobby, smirking internally at the resemblance between the marble statues and himself.

 

“There’s a woman in room 404,” Carlisle said in perfect Italian to the night manager. “See to it that she has everything she needs. This should cover the night.”

 

From nowhere, he produced a thick wad of notes, much too much, and handed it to the man.

 

“Oh, and you couldn’t throw in breakfast, could you?” he said, not waiting for an answer.

 

_I expect she’ll be hungry._

 

“Yes sir, of course,” said the night manager, too professional to show his surprise at the strikingly handsome blond man’s behaviour.

 

Maybe it wasn’t all that unusual

 

“Thanks,” the hotel guest said over his shoulder, telling himself again and again that he had enjoyed himself. 

 

Hadn’t he?

 

 _Of course I have,_ he thought, unlocking his suitably black and shiny hire car and throwing his bag in the back.

 

He then gracefully lowered himself into the driver’s seat but instead of beginning his drive to Volterra, he let his head fall into his hands.

 

“Fuck,” he muttered angrily running his fingers once through his newly-washed hair.

 

Sex outside of marriage was a sin. To add to that, thinking about another woman…who you were not married to _either_ while doing it, probably made it more so.

 

He was sure that Violetta, the very beautiful air stewardess from his flight, would be appalled to know that the man who had her in his arms had been in fact wondering what his secretary was doing and hoping she had found time to watch the documentary she had wanted to see about the penguins, rather than her exquisite Italian body.

 

 _It should have been her,_ Carlisle thought, for the first time in his life feeling an itch of infidelity on his skin (though he and his love weren’t actually together). _Esme._

 

But…but he didn’t want Violetta to have thought that he hadn’t enjoyed himself.

 

What if she woke and thought he had been too distant?…And what if she hadn’t enjoyed herself?…Or what if she regretted it?…And what if it had been _Esme_ instead?…And would _she_ have enjoyed herself…?

 

“Oh really, Carlisle,” he whispered to himself angrily. “Grow up for fuck _bloody_ sake.”

 

Doing that, he turned the key in the ignition.

 

Now was not the time for weakness and what Edward called his ‘pedantic worrying’. It was time for Dr Cullen to metaphorically take off his stethoscope and literally don his cloak.

 

To distract himself somewhat, Carlisle scrolled idly through the news on his phone as he sped towards Volterra and it certainly worked.

 

He saw something he did _not_ want to see.

 

The doctor pulled over sharply, the pitiful electronic device held almost too tight in his hand as he dialled the Cullen residence.

 

“Hello, Carlisle!” Alice trilled brightly, answering on the first ring. “She was so _pretty,_ wasn’t she! Don’t worry, she doesn’t regret a thing. You’re actually pretty good boasting rights.”

 

Carlisle ignored the comment.

 

“Alice, I assume you know why I’m calling,” he said curtly in his best ‘Mr Bond’ voice. “And can I also assume, by extension, that you’ve made sure that Rosalie is there to take the call?”

 

“Absolutely,” Alice told him proudly, passing the phone to her sister.

 

“Carlisle,” the young blonde woman said without inflection or affection.

 

“Rose, have you been watching the news?” Carlisle asked, voice harsh.

 

“Not really…you know how it bores me…” she replied, sounding _exaggeratedly_ bored, in an attempt to raise her father’s metaphorical blood pressure.

 

“This. Vigilante. Nonsense. _Stops,”_ Carlisle shouted, stressing every word. “Do you _understand_ me, Rosalie?”

 

“We did for Esme what _I_ wish someone would have done for _me!”_ she hissed back.

 

“Oh! Edward too, was it?” Carlisle asked, bitterly enraged.

 

“Yes!” Rosalie screamed down the phone. “And the filth in their minds! You know as well as we do what they would have done to her!”

 

Carlisle did. The mist of scarlet rage started to close his vision.

 

“But now Esme’s going to think _I_ did this!” he shouted back. “Did that not occur to you? And now we have more bodies on our hands! We do _not_ need this right now!”

 

He could sense Rosalie’s eye-roll on the other side of the line.

 

“Shit,” Carlisle muttered, kneading his forehead.

 

He needed a moment to think.

 

“Did you at least check the site?” he asked at last, sounding almost weary. “No cameras, no witnesses, no tyre tracks….”

 

“Uh, no, I took a selfie with the bodies and put it up on fucking Instagram,” Rosalie said with her brand of sweet sarcasm. 

 

She sighed impatiently.

 

 _“Yes,_ Carlisle, we took precautions. Jesus, I’m not an _idiot.”_

 

“Really?” the doctor laughed hollowly. “Well, the fact this happened _at all_ leads me to dispute that.”

 

“Then dispute it,” Rosalie said plainly. “They’re dead and the world’s a better place.”

 

“That’s all very well,” Carlisle replied tautly. “But as a _reward_ for your efforts, you and Edward are to _watch_ Esme, every minute of every day until I return to make sure she is safe. I will know if you haven’t done so.”

 

“But-”

 

 _“That_ is an order,” he said with god-like finality. “Follow it.”

 

Carlisle terminated the call and sighed with frustration, hands flexing on the wheel before he angrily pulled back into the traffic and barrelled towards the walled city.

 

The doctor hadn’t felt so agitated on a journey for a while now. Perhaps it was Rosalie’s stunt?

 

But no, deep down Carlisle knew that his growing agitation had been brought on by the fact that the finest of Italian women had just brought him no kind of sexual satisfaction at all.

 

He also felt the prickle at the back of his neck that meant that someone was talking about him which always made him particularly ratty, especially when he knew it was an enemy.

 

But that was fine - Carlisle was very used to this. The problem was that after the accident he’d always ensured to arrived in Volterra, a place that utterly enraged him, extremely calm, to prevent a similar thing from happening again.

 

The other problem was that in his agitation, he knew that they dead could reach him.

 

Normally, like his bloodlust, Carlisle could tune the voices out. It was almost effortless now, or had been before Esme had re-appeared. (Nowadays he really could sympathise with Edward).

 

The voices tended just to be a buzz but, sometimes when he was emotionally weakened, somebody would appear to him, a solid apparition only apparent to him, like his mother had been when he had been upset as a human child.

 

The worst experience like this happened in 1974 when he had to tackle a difficult kidney transplant with his father screaming in his ear and telling him how damned he was for the entirety of the procedure.

 

It was something that Carlisle lived in fear of, and recognised the same fear in Esme when threatened with another panic attack.

 

His knuckles tightened on the wheel.

 

 _God_ if he ever got his hands on Charles Evenson…

 

It was tempting, _oh_ so tempting to do it right that moment from afar. Have Evenson shitting out his digestive system along with his stale prison food, or cough up his own beating heart.

 

But no, Carlisle wanted to look into his eyes as the light left them…

 

But perhaps death was too good. Too _clean_ for the man who had tormented Esme.

 

Tormented _Esme._  

 

_Esme._

 

Carlisle’s hands were shaking on the wheel and it was this new anger that opened the veil wide enough for someone to visit him in the Italian pre-dawn.

 

He slammed on the brakes as he saw Esme in his headlights.

 

“Esme?” he gasped.

 

She couldn't be here unless…No…no she couldn’t be…

 

Carlisle flickered out of the car in shock. Esme was…Esme was _dead?_

 

“ESME!” he screamed, anguished.

 

But the woman did not react, just continued to stare, and as Carlisle calmed down a little, he noticed his mistake.

 

“M-Mrs Swan?” he stammered.

 

Carlisle had heard that Chief Swan’s mother had died a few years previously, but somehow his mind had never made the leap, allowing him to realise that that must have been _Esme’s_ mother too, the women he had barely remembered next to her injured daughter’s smell.

 

She looked _so_ like Esme, except she was very slender and her eyes weren’t as slanted. She also hadn’t been blessed with her daughter’s dimples or caramel hair, gifts from her elusive father.

 

Mrs Swan appeared as she had done when Carlisle had met her in life. Her hair was unwashed and her shirt was smeared with little dabs of colour from where she had been finger painting with her daughter before she fell from the tree. She looked tired from the effort of being a young single mother (years younger than Esme currently was) raising two children on a pitiful salary and worrying whether she was doing a rater bad job of it, seeing as one child ran around playing cops all the time with a plastic gun, and the other spent most of her time with the tree in the garden, talking more to the sparrow on the fence than she did to other kids.

 

However, as Mrs Swan’s dead eyes fixed on the doctor, her face was transfigured into something terrible. The tiredness fell away, to leave her _viciously_ angry.

 

 _“You,”_ she snarled, taking a step towards where the BMW had stopped haphazardly in the middle of the road. “You keep you hands _off_ of her! You hear?”

 

Slowly, and numb with fear, Carlisle got back into the driver’s seat and closed the door, wide eyes not leaving the woman for a millisecond.

 

“Are you listening to me, Doctor?” Mrs Swan rasped as she started to cry hopeless bloody tears.

 

Yes, he was.

 

“Not my little girl,” she whispered, face crumpling with sadness. “Not my baby. Not Esme. I know what you’ll do to her you sick _fuck.”_

 

Carlisle’s face was frozen in shock. He didn’t, _couldn’t,_ react.

 

“And you’ll enjoy it too, won’t you, Doctor?” she croaked.

 

The dead woman’s face then contorted into a twisted grin, and as it did, a few brave maggots wriggled out of her open mouth. Esme’s mouth.

 

Making only the tiniest movements he could, Carlisle started the engine.

 

“Oh! I see! Running away, huh?” she shouted, suddenly enraged. _“HUH?”_

 

With a shriek, the woman ran forwards with her bloody hands clawed in front of her as if to gauge Carlisle’s eyes out. Reaching the car, she slammed her fists against the bonnet.

 

Carlisle’s foot hit the accelerator and, with a scream, Esme’s tormented mother vanished under the car’s wheels.

 

He felt the bump as the car drove over her.

 

As the car roared away, Carlisle checked the rearview to see the bloody smear on the asphalt, visible only to him.

 

His face puckered as he shook with terrified, tearless sobs. 

 

 _Lord of the Dead,_ he thought as he took ragged breaths. _If they only knew…_

 


	24. And You Must Be Rosalie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kay, so when you think 'Rosalie', think Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale. I like her kind of psychotic bitchiness…
> 
> You’re welcome.

When Rosalie followed someone, she did it in style.

 

Rather noticeable style, Esme thought, as for the third time that morning a rather ridiculously glossy red BMW convertible pulled into the same parking lot Esme had just arrived at and the driver, none other than Cullen junior herself, parked up a few speed away and glared.

 

And, for the third time, Esme attempted a shy wave, but Rosalie just rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine.

 

In fact, all of the weekend after her horrible experience in Port Angeles, Esme continued to see Rosalie, either alone or accompanied by her brother, Edward (or occasionally her tiny sister who looked a little too happy for her own good).

 

They seemed to be making a day of it.

 

Maybe that passed for entertainment in Forks? Heaven knows there wasn’t an awful lot of things for young people to do.

 

But it was a small town, so Esme couldn’t be sure she was being followed. Perhaps they had some errands to run too? Or were, more likely, just revelling in the freedom of having their father out of town. 

 

Yes, that was it.

 

She always erred on the side of benefit of the doubt where children were concerned.

 

However, Esme’s gut was telling her that she was the object of some kind of tracking exercise so, to test her theory, Esme drove slightly out of town to the garden centre, which really didn’t seem like a Rosalie sort of place.

 

Oh! But lo and behold, there the red convertible was, already parked.

 

“Right, then,” Esme muttered to herself as she grabbed her bag, knowing that she would have to demand to know what was going on so, hoping she wouldn’t have to make an enemy of any of Carlisle’s children in doing so, Esme entered the garden centre to confront his eldest daughter.

 

Esme loved plants and always had. Weirdly, they seemed to love her too, since Esme was blessed with the greenest fingers of anyone she knew.

 

Everything from the grandest of Canadian redwoods to the most wilted of forget-me-nots were precious to the chief’s sister.

 

Browsing the aisles, Esme began to relax a little, taking in the deep, soothing smell of fertile earth. So far, it seemed to be a fairly Rosalie-free zone.

 

“Hi, Angela,” she called to the girl who had a summer job there and who she knew from her frequent trips. “How are you today?”

 

“Hey, Esme,” the girl smiled. “And good, thanks. We got some new fruit trees in, if you’re interested.”

 

“Oh! I’ll go and have a look, thanks, Angela,” Esme said, turning to a new row of pots.

 

There were pear trees, plum trees and a rather handsome cherry which Esme admired for a moment before spotting another plant which was practically crying out for her.

 

“Oh you poor thing!” she muttered to the particularly scrappy apple tree sapling, the last of the lot. “Did nobody want you? Come on, I’ll buy you and plant you somewhere nice.”

 

She took the pot in her arms, like a baby, and went to pay for it.

 

“Thanks,” Angela said as Esme plopped the sapling down on the counter. “Er…do you need any…fertiliser for that? We have some on offer.”

 

“Oh, that’s kind,” Esme answered. “But I’ve never actually used fertiliser.”

 

“Wow,” Angela said, surprised. “That’s pretty cool. I can never get stuff to grow.”

 

She looked at Esme’s wilting tree.

 

“Perhaps you’re just what this little one needs,” she cooed to the sapling which, in all honesty, she didn't think stood a chance. “I’m glad someone’s showing this one a little love…”

 

Angela trailed off and a look of alarm crossed the teen’s face as she saw the third-scariest Cullen kid striding towards her.

 

“Hi,” Rosalie said loudly and rather harshly, making Esme jump. “Esme Swan?”

 

“Yes,” Esme said, trying to recover herself after her fright and seeing so much of Carlisle in this girl. “And you must be Rosalie! Your father’s told me a lot about you.”

 

“Non of the more crucial bits, I’m sure,” Rose said with a sickly smile. 

 

She turned to her fellow high school student.

 

“Your name’s Angela, right?” she said, almost accusingly.

 

Angela nodded.

 

“You mind taking the social initiative and giving Miss Swan and myself a moment alone,” Rosalie continued, hand on hip.

 

“Um,” Angela squirmed. “Well, I’m not really supposed to leave the cash register unattended…”

 

“You’re suppose to do what I say,” Rosalie snapped, losing her patience with the damn human. “Otherwise I’ll complain about the service here. The customer’s always right. Or haven’t you heard that one?”

 

Angela looked panicked.

 

“Um, I’ll just..”

 

“No, I’ll pay now,” Esme said firmly, shooting Angela an encouraging smile as she fiddled with her purse.

 

Rosalie gave her two seconds of floundering before she took charge.

 

“Here!” she burst, slamming a wad of crisp notes on the counter, in true Cullen style. “She’s paid!”

 

She then yanked Esme’s arm, surprisingly hard, and led the human to a secluded part of the shit-hole outdoor store.

 

“You say Carlisle’s been talking about me, huh?” Rosalie demanded as they arrived down the side of the shed section, a place worryingly devoid of witnesses.

 

“W-well not in depth,” Esme said, feeling as though the social upper-hand had been lost to Dr Cullen’s daughter. “He just mentioned a few-”

 

“Daddy’s also been talking about _you,”_ Rosalie interrupted. “For…oh, I don’t know…”

 

She shrugged very deliberately.

 

“…Weeks?” she finished sweetly, before her expression soured. “The guy’s _obsessed,_ to the point where the rest of us are all a little concerned and, believe me, it takes an _effort_ to concern us.”

 

“You say…obsessed?” Esme laughed nervously, clutching the apple tree’s pot a little tighter for comfort.

 

“Yeah,” Rosalie said, examining her nails. “I’m sure by now you’ve sussed out he’s been following you day…and night. And while he’s in Italy, no doubt screwing some brunette bombshell as we speak, he’s had me take over stalking duty.”

 

 _Stalking_ …Esme mouthed, brow furrowed in disbelief.

 

“Speaking of!” Rosalie burst, suddenly extremely animated. “Esme…”

 

She leaned in a little closer.

 

“I heard what happened the other night in Port Angeles,” the blonde girl whispered, wearing now a rather inscrutable expression on her face.

 

“You…um, you did?” asked Esme, heart suddenly pounding.

 

Strangely, Rosalie seemed to notice this and her expression softened ever so slightly.

 

“Yah,” she said. “And don’t worry, it’s been dealt with. Your seven dwarfs won’t be bothering you again.”

 

Esme’s brow furrowed.

 

“And whilst we’re on the subject,” the taller of the two continued. “Well…”

 

Rosalie rolled her eyes with surprising bitterness.

 

“I know it always seems to be the woman’s fault, doesn’t it?” she said with an acrid chuckle. “But, just until His Majesty gets back, would you mind _not_ wandering round on your own at night? Just makes my job a little easier.”

 

“Is this even _legal?”_ Esme spluttered.

 

Rosalie gave a very silvery little laugh.

 

“I don’t know,” she said prettily. “Ask your brother.”

 

Her face clouded over.

 

“No, seriously, don’t,” she said. “And, yes, that _was_ a threat.”

 

“But-”

 

“I don’t know if its legal,” Rosalie interrupted. “But it certainly is not _fair._ See, it may be summer break, and I may not have any more tests to ace this year, but I still have a _life_ and I find Carlisle’s character-building punishments…tiring, okay?”

 

“Er, no,” Esme answered crossly. _“Not_ okay! You… _cannot_ be doing this!”

 

“Super,” Rosalie said in a businesslike way, ignoring Esme’s protests. “Oh, and just before I go back to tailing you at a respectful distance everywhere you go for the next three days, a morsel of sisterly advice.”

 

She leaned in very close and Esme could smell the girl’s perfume - strawberries and confidence.

 

“Sure, Carlisle likes you at the moment,” the vampire said sweetly. “But when the wind changes…”

 

She snapped her manicured fingers.

 

“You’ll be dying in agony before you can scream for God to help you,” she whispered against Esme’s ear. “And it doesn’t matter how many _baloney sandwiches_ he buys you, that will always be true.”

 

Oddly, the girl then gave Esme a little sniff.

 

“Personally, I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she murmured. “But, hey, what do I know…?”

 

She sprung backward again to give Esme a lofty appraisal.

 

“One more thing, don’t worry about the tree money,” Rosalie said with a dark chuckle. “I’m sure Carlisle will be buying you diamonds and sports cars before long, so you’d better get used to being in his irrevocable dept. Believe me, that man’s a real bitch for doing that sort of thing.”

 

Esme was speechless.

 

“Now, any questions?” Rosalie asked the flabbergasted human, who couldn’t quite keep up with her sentence-by-sentence mood swings.

 

There was a moment of pause. Strawberry infused the air as Rosalie’s long and perfectly straight cornsilk hair fluttered in the breeze.

 

“What shampoo do you use?” Esme asked at last, deciding that if Miss Cullen got to say whatever the hell she felt like, so could she.

 

Rosalie grinned at Esme’s back-blow.

 

“Good with weird huh?” she chuckled. “And a few good retorts to boot, I like you, Miss Swan…”

 

She cast her eyes down for a moment and frowned.

 

“Real pity…” she whispered.

 

Too much of a pity.

 

Deciding to do the right thing, Rosalie locked Esme’s eyes with her own.

 

“Esme,” she said in a mesmerisingly beautiful voice, an urgent voice. “You are not safe in this town, and I don’t want more blood on our hands. I would hate for what happened to me to happen to you. Do you have a passport?”

 

The human nodded as if her head was on a string.

 

“Good. You’re going to have to use it.”

 

Rosalie dropped her voice fugitively.

 

“Before Carlisle comes back, you will find a plane ticket and a bank card to an account in Edinburgh on your car seat. I want you to pack all you can in one suitcase and take the first fli-”

 

 _“Rosalie!”_  

 

Suddenly, the spell was broken.

 

Esme turned, feeling oddly confused, to see what must be another Cullen sibling dashing towards the pair of them looking a little harassed. She had long chestnut hair and looked vaguely southern-European. Weird, since she, like her father and sister, was so pale.

 

Esme also recognised the trademark Cullen eyes and jaw-dropping good looks.

 

Additionally, by process of elimination, Esme realised who this must be.

 

“Oh,” Rosalie said without enthusiasm, giving the newcomer the same head-to-toe grimace she had given Esme. “It’s you.”

 

“I am… _so_ sorry about her!” Bella gushed as she came to a skidding halt. “Seriously, I guess she forgot to take her meds this morning or something.”

 

Rosalie stylishly flipped her sister the finger.

 

“Just, please, forget everything she just told you,” Bella continued, slightly hysterically. “It’s…none of it’s true.”

 

“I…don’t know if I can…” Esme said, eyeing Rosalie whose eyes were still boring into her own, silently pleading with her.

 

Bella laughed nervously.

 

“I’m Bella, by the way,” she informed the human.

 

“Hi, Bella,” Esme smiled, immediately liking the young woman.

 

“Um…And I was just off to…er…”

 

Rosalie raised an amused eyebrow at her sister. Vampire or not, Bella was an appallingly awkward liar.

 

“Get a coffee,” the girl finished lamely.

 

“And if you would like to accompany us, Miss Swan, we would be thrilled,” said a voice from behind Esme and she gasped, not having heard any footsteps.

 

“Hey, F.Y.I., nobody likes to accompany you anywhere, _Edward,”_ Rosalie informed him scornfully as Esme recovered from the shock of the boy’s silent approach.

 

He nodded the human an apology, and spoke without looking at the blonde girl.

 

“Rosalie you can go now,” he said dismissively. “We will talk later about this.”

 

“Oh, end of my shift, then?” she said. “Cool, see you around, Esme! Everywhere you go!”

 

With that, Rosalie stormed away, fists balled at her side, as yet another rescue attempt was thwarted.

 

After she had rounded the corner, Esme turned to the two other teens, unsure whether the whole thing was one huge surreal dream or not.

 

“Would you two just mind telling me what’s going on here?”

 


	25. Grande Amore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Lo guys!
> 
> Hope you’re enjoying the story!
> 
> Now, a little music…
> 
> In my mind, the opera song they sing in this chapter is called 'Grande Amore' by Il Volo (if you wanna go and listen to it, I would recommend it!)
> 
> It had a great 'something is about to happen' build-up to the first chorus which I think is perfect for this scene. 
> 
> I hope you like it :)

_If anyone crosses me today,_ Carlisle thought as he stormed into the Volturi’s palace behind his escort. _I’ll rip their head off._

 

He could feel the power inside him yearning to be let out, like a dog that wasn’t walked enough, and _God_ give him a reason…

 

He was on a worryingly short fuse, with the terrifying run-in with Esme’s departed mother dusting the icing on the cake…which wasn’t in fact a cake, but a very large bomb.

 

Carlisle could almost hear himself ticking. Tick, tick, tick…

 

But he couldn’t explode. Because when he exploded, people got hurt.

 

 _Good,_ he thought savagely, when at the doors of the sickening mint-green elevator, (which had a very distinct ‘dentist-feel’), Jane gave him a particularly bratty look.

 

Carlisle took in a breath.

 

_Calm…calm…nice smooth ocean…calm…_

 

_…Peace and love. Peace and love, peace and love…_

 

Jane shot him the look again and her brother turned to give him an identical one.

 

_Aaaaand…peaceandlovepeaceandlove…peace and love…_

 

“Peace and love, don’t you think?” Carlisle said conversationally to the vampire next to him, trembling in the doctor’s presence.

 

He squirmed not knowing what response Dīs Pater wanted. 

 

What if he gave the wrong answer and caused another…accident?

 

Carlisle enjoyed the other vampire’s discomfort for only a moment before feeling ashamed with himself.

 

 _Oh don’t be a shit, Carlisle,_ he thought to himself, seeing how much he scared the creature next to him.

 

Not seconds later, the doors opened and Carlisle strode out into the opulent throne room.

 

The waiting audience felt to their knees.

 

“Dīs Pater,” they chanted as one, as if they had been practicing. 

 

They probably had.

 

Carlisle barely acknowledged the majority of his followers and made directly for Aro, flanked of course by Marcus, looking so bored he might kill himself, and Cauis who looked so angry he might kill everyone _else._

 

“Aro, how nice to see you,” Carlisle smiled.

 

The two men embraced like the good chums they were. Weren’t they such good chums!

 

Carlisle hated the man.

 

Then came the inevitable moment where Aro extended his hand.

 

A simple handshake, it would seem, but, in accepting the gesture, Carlisle would open his mind to the most power-hungry vampire in the world, and that isn’t what one does when they survive by weaving a web of lies. 

 

Plus, Aro would find out how much his semi-romantic advances made Carlisle feel faintly sick, which could be taken as rather bad manners on the doctor’s part.

 

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Carlisle said charmingly, as if it would have been his treat. “That would compromise the confidentiality of my patients.”

 

The room chuckled dutifully, and for a moment Carlisle was struck again by how much his life had changed since he trudged his London streets a s a child. Never did the poor little Elephant Boy suspect that one day _he_ would be the person whose jokes others were forced to laugh at.

 

“How are we all?” Carlisle asked the amassed group of Volturi guards, motioning casually for them to stand as he put his hands safely in his pockets, trying to look thoroughly unconcerned.

 

Nobody spoke, merely eyed the threat warily.

 

“We’re all very happy,” Marcus said with a sigh, not looking very happy.

 

“Good,” Carlisle replied.

 

“Yes, good!” Aro repeated excitedly. “Because just last week we caught someone, didn’t we Caius?”

 

The blond merely sneered.

 

“And we saved her for you!” the Volturi’s leader cried happily.

 

 _Oh_ ** _bloody_** _hell!_ Carlisle thought. _I bloody_ ** _knew_** _this would happen._

 

Internally, Carlisle sighed, knowing there wasn’t really an escape. 

 

He was also ashamed at the flicker of excitement he felt at the thought of taking another vampire’s life.

 

Carlisle had acted as executioner before - he supposed he had no excuse not to. He was better qualified than any other vampire to do so and supposedly enjoyed the act.

 

“Alrighty, then,” Carlisle said with the same bravado, checking the time very obviously on his Rolex as he did so, as if the thought of snuffing out a fellow consciousness merely _bored_ him. “Bring the accused forwards.”

 

There was a quiet scuffle from one of the antechambers of the throne room and then a female with startlingly red hair was dragged before her executioner. The redhead stiffened with fear as she set eyes on him, and Carlisle knew _she_ knew exactly who and what he was.

 

“What is your name?” Dīs Pater demanded of his subject.

 

“Victoria,” Aro said at last, after the female had given no answer.

 

“Do you have a coven?” Carlisle asked.

 

Silence. The woman merely glowered.

 

“What is your gift?” Carlisle tried again, realising that this was going to be a longer few days than he had thought.

 

Again, Victoria didn’t answer and Jane looked to Aro eagerly knowing her talents may soon be required.

 

“She can sense danger and evade it,” Aro said excitedly, eyes flipping greedily from the doctor to the criminal. “That’s why she’s proven so slippery to catch. She made a newborn army, you know.”

 

He shrugged with a small smile of his thin lips.

 

“I fear…her end grows closer…”

 

Carlisle sighed with frustration. 

 

Newborn army. That was death for sure. 

 

He would have no opportunity to spare her now.

 

“Quite,” Carlisle said, his eyes fixed on his victim. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

 

Victoria stared at him unblinkingly. He saw the terror in her eyes, and knew how much her apparent stoicism was costing her.

 

“Then…Victoria the nomad,” Carlisle announced. “I sentence you to die.”

 

Aro looked at if he would pee himself with excitement.

 

Dīs Pater was going to execute! His favourite!

 

However, when the man strode forward, anger in his gait, he walked past his victim.

 

“Come with me,” he hissed to her.

 

“Not here?” Aro said lightly, disappointed.

 

Carlisle rounded on Aro. The other’s man’s fascination with what Carlisle could do sickened him, and frankly irritated him.

 

“No,” he said plainly.

 

Ignoring the stares behind him, Carlisle took Victoria firmly by the arm and led her out of the chamber, down a long passageway and to a secluded little room which was surprisingly cosy despite its which stone walls.

 

“Please, have a seat,” Carlisle invited politely, as if she were a patient in his clinic, rather than another in the long list of the victims of Death.

 

“Who are you?” she whispered, not understanding the power she sensed in him.

 

How could he be so… _so_ …?

 

“My name is Carlisle,” he told her softly. “Now, Victoria, I don’t want to instil any false hope. Today is your time. I have not brought you here to spare your life. Rules were broken, and if you are not punished accordingly, our entire justice system falls apart. You do see this?”

 

“Then why am I here?” she snapped, scared, not angry.

 

“I want to hear what you have to say,” Carlisle told her. “And I’m very much in favour of the preservation of dignity in the case of dying.”

 

He chuckled.

 

“I’ve been to an awful lot of conferences on the matter.”

 

Carlisle sat too.

 

 _“Why_ did you create a newborn army?” he asked the accused.

 

“To avenge my mate, James,” she said bluntly. “He was killed by another coven.”

 

“Hmmm,” Carlisle said, trawling through the memories of the dead. “James. Blond fellow? Hair in a ponytail?”

 

Victoria nodded.

 

“A fairly noble intent,” Carlisle decided. “Though you, in turn, destroyed the loved ones of many others in doing so, did you not?”

 

“Yes,” she answered.

 

“Do you feel any remorse?” Carlisle wondered.

 

“Not for the ones I killed,” she told him.

 

“Yet you yourself are afraid of dying?”

 

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Victoria said, though as she did her voice broke and she started shaking.

 

 _Fuck,_ Carlisle thought to himself.

 

Killing never got any easier, and this nomad reminded him very much of a scared Rosalie. However, he was careful to hold the calm expression on his face.

 

“Everyone is afraid of Death,” he said gently. “And it is _nothing_ to be ashamed of.”

 

Carlisle couldn’t tell if Victoria was comforted by this since her eyes were looking anywhere _but_ at Death and his freaky golden eyes.

 

“Do you follow the word of God?” he asked her.

 

“I…used to,” she whispered.

 

Suddenly, all of the teachings of her human faith were coming back to her.

 

“What’s going to happen to me?” she whispered, imagining the fiery hell of her transformation.

 

“That is for you to discover,” Carlisle said. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

 

She was shaking now.

 

“But Victoria,” Carlisle murmured, talking both her her hands in his. “I promise you, it’s going to be alright…” 

 

And Death took her into his arms.

 

A day-and-a-half later (of which Carlisle feel every second), he, Aro, Caius and Marcus sat smoking cigars in the the cards room in Volterra. They could have almost been a group of old Etonians catching up.

 

“How are your wives?” Carlisle asked, tapping the ash from the end of the cigar jauntily.

 

“Wonderful,” Aro replied. “And what about your own…conquests?”

 

Carlisle grinned.

 

“Wonderful, too,” he lied with a smirk. “Or maybe it’s too wonderful, I don't know.”

 

Aro gave a girlish giggle.

 

“Well, Carlisle, if ever your human consorts disappoint, my offer still stands,” he simpered.

 

“Very kind,” the doctor replied, wondering why his repeated and exaggerated reminders to Aro that he was decidedly heterosexual fell on deaf ears.

 

_Is_ **_if_ ** _I’m going to let you touch my balls you grubby little man!_

 

“And my wife is also at your disposal, should you wish it,” Aro continued.

 

Carlisle gave a cough and shifted awkwardly in his chair.

 

“Most generous,” he smiled tightly.

 

Then, he gave what he hoped could pass as a _contented_ sigh.

 

“Well, I ought to be going,” he announced with a dash of polite regret. “Fantastic to see you all.”

 

Aro pouted.

 

“So soon, my friend?”

 

“I’m afraid so,” Carlisle said firmly.

 

“The doctor is probably very busy,” Caius said in his typically snake-like manner. “And has to get home soon.”

 

Aro huffed.

 

“Won’t you stay a little longer?” he said, beady eyes glinting.

 

“I have other commitments,” Carlisle said.

 

“Please! You must stay for the opera!”

 

“Aro, I’m afraid I-”

 

“I _insist.”_

 

Ah. Fuck.

 

The relationship between Aro and Carlisle was a power play, plain and simple. Carlisle was willing to let Aro rule in the interest of keeping the peace and allowing him the time for Medicine and his family. However, it was an unspoken truth that Carlisle had more power - Aro’s utter humiliation in the face of _the accident_ had proven that most satisfactorily. It was therefore important that Carlisle show submission to Aro’s whims, to prove loyalty.

 

The beast in Carlisle was furious that there was another creature in the vampire world with more influence then he had himself, but he knew it was wiser to watch from afar. You know, back in the US with his family and his job and his home and his Esme…

 

The beast became angrier. 

 

Who was this piece of _vermin_ who deemed himself worthy enough to keep him any longer from his Esme?

 

Esme who had suffered a very traumatic thing, and then Rosalie and Edward had…

 

“Wonderful,” Carlisle said politely, as his fist curled tightly behind his back, Rosalie’s piece of _goodwill_ angering hm further.

 

Now, his smooth, calm ocean began to simmer.

 

The doctor barely noticed Aro’s chatter as he walked with him to Volterra’s theatre. He was now the statue he resembled. Stoic. Calm. And certainly would not throttle the man walking next to him.

 

Carlisle’s face was even inscrutable as he picked up the mask Aro had provided for him, following the Masquerade theme.

 

“Doctor Death,” he said, as his simmer became slightly more of a boil. “Fitting.”

 

He even managed a tight smile. See? He had smiled at Aro. That was nice and friendly.

 

In their box at the theatre, Aro sat a little too close, like he always did, and Carlisle became hyperaware of where those rather avian hands of Aro’s were.

 

But, the little man was not interested in Carlisle’s belt buckle today, as he often saw fit to admire, rather he was staring entranced at the stage, where the show was set to begin.

 

Then the doors opened and the babble of human voices got louder as the theatre filled with tourists.

 

“Hang on…” Carlisle said, strangely wary. “Humans too?”

 

“It’s not fair to keep our art to ourselves, is it?” Aro asked him sagely.

 

Carlisle shifted awkwardly.

 

“I suppose not,” he allowed, turning back to the stage.

 

Human families in the stalls excitedly hushed one another as the music started and the spotlight (rigged for their benefit) switched on.

 

It was a daylight lamp, and the audience ‘oooh-ed’ obediently as the performers started to glitter, thanking the makeup they imagined the men to be wearing for the effect.

 

 _“Chiudo gli occhi e penso a lei,”_ began the first singer, obviously identifiable as a vampire by the sweetness of his voice. _“Il profumo dolce della pelle sua…È una voce dentro che mi sta portando…dove nasce il sole…”_

 

Carlisle felt the sense of anticipation growing in his belly. And, with increasing unease, thought it wasn’t the crescendo of the music that he was waiting for.

 

 _“Sole sono le parole,”_ sang the second vampire, who had a raspier voice but was equally talented. _“Ma se vanno scritte tutto può cambiare…Senza più timore te lo voglio urlare…questo grande amore…”_

 

A beautiful smile, an almost childlike smile, stretched across the performer’s glittering face.

 

_“…Amore, solo amore…è quello…che sento…”_

 

Now it was the turn of the third man and the tempo of the music quickened, like a rainstorm growing more urgent.

 

_“Dimmi perché quando penso, penso solo a te…”_

 

The immobile, masked population of the theatre became suddenly more pronounced to Carlisle as he realised just how many of them there really were. 

 

The lights dimmed further.

 

_“Dimmi perché quando vedo, vedo solo te…”_

 

The doors were shut and vampires moved to guard every entrance.

 

_“Dimmi perché quando credo, credo solo in te…”_

 

The three singers moved to stand together and sing in unison as the silent population of the theatre stood up.

 

_“….Grrrrrrande amooooore…”_

 

And then Carlisle smelled blood.

 

Thick… _human_ blood, tinged with terror and the residue of happiness - the perfect blend of chemicals.

 

 _God_ he wanted it, but the more active part of his brain was already reaching for the medical bag he had forgotten he didn’t have with him.

 

Blood! Emergency! 

 

He watched his supernatural brothers and sisters swimming in carnage. 

 

How… _ashamed_ he was. After all he had strived to achieve…

 

“Stop,” Carlisle said.

 

The slaughter continued.

 

The burn, not in Carlisle’s throat, but in his stomach became unbearable.

 

Finally, he boiled over.

 

“I SAID _STOP!”_ he shrieked.

 

As one, the room turned to face the doctor, who only then realised he was on his feet, no… _not_ on his feet.

 

The air was black, as if with soot, and Carlisle was standing on his own cloud of fury, above the heads of the other vampires in his box. Trying not to look too stunned, Carlisle let himself gently back onto the plush carpet.

 

“Look _around_ you!” he shouted and his voice ricocheted off the walls. “Are you _animals?”_

 

“This is how things are done in Volterra,” Aro said with an assuredness that evaporated very soon as Carlisle rounded on him.

 

“Not anymore.”

 

“W-was that a challenge?” Aro asked, eyes wide.

 

“That was an order,” Carlisle shot back.

 

The walls should have crumbled, tectonic plates should have jarred, volcanoes should have erupted to mark the transference of centuries worth of ruling power in the vampire world.

 

Dīs Pater had pulled rank.

 

There was no going back.

 

As it was, only the gazes of the Volturi searing into the two men marked the occasion but the atmosphere was so alive with electric menace that even the dying humans were silent.

 

“From now on, you will feed… _respectfully,”_ Carlisle commanded curtly, no room in his tone for interpretation. 

 

The man was livid.

 

“You will not kill _children_ purposefully,” he continued louder still. “And you will _not_ slaughter the art-lovers, for _God’s_ sake,”

 

“And what, pray tell, has changed your mind?” Aro breathed, undecided of whether he was breathless with excitement or rage after Carlisle’s moment of dominance.

 

A pair of brown eyes twinkled across Carlisle’s mind and compared to their owner’s intrinsic goodness, the whole of Volterra made him what to retch.

 

“That is _none_ of your concern,” Carlisle spat.

 

“Are you leaving us?” Caius drawled, trying desperately not to look as scared as he felt.

 

He could have meant more than just the opera.

 

Carlisle ignored him.

 

“You might as well finish what you’ve started today,” Carlisle said to the vampires. “Dispose of the dead with dignity and leave no survivors - no human should have to live with this.” 

 

With that, Carlisle dumped his cloak on the floor, calmly removed his mask and left.

 


	26. W-where is Alice?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the great response I got on the previous chapter! Y'all are the best!

It was Wednesday. Finally, finally Wednesday.

 

The day Carlisle would be back and the day that Esme would get her answers.

 

After her conversation with Edward and Bella, who had both seemed charming and had been almost excruciatingly polite, Esme had been soothed somewhat.

 

Rosalie took her mother’s death really hard…Carlisle spoke about Esme a lot…Rosalie was protective of her father…She didn’t want any more change in the family…

 

It had made sense.

 

Well, at the time, at least (it seemed that Dr Cullen’s son had inherited his father’s charm).

 

However, as Esme drove home, the overwhelming rush of knowledge she had accumulated about the doctor hit her and she had to pull over to ensure she didn’t have a mini-meltdown while the car was in motion.

 

Dr Cullen did not appear to age. He, and she was convinced that it had been him, had set her broken leg when she was a child.

 

His eye colour and mood changed quite radically from one day to the next, though his irises would darken gradually and lighten quicker. When his eyes were golden, he was happy, when dark, he wasn’t - which was presumably a part of the bipolarity he had told Esme he suffered from.

 

His black eyes much have been the last thing Mrs Cullen ever saw.

 

Because part two: Carlisle followed her.

 

If she believed her gut, he was also the thing that had touched her, which was what Rosalie had claimed, wasn’t it? ‘Following you day and night’?

 

Carlisle must have found her in Port Angeles by tailing her and had saved Cheetos and herself from the wolves the same way.

 

But why would that enormous wolf have run away from him? Unless the wolves were…

 

…Meaning…he was… 

 

 _Oh don’t be ridiculous, Esme,_ she thought to herself. _Honestly! When have you ever been right about someone? God! It’s as if you_ ** _want_** _to be paranoid and delusional._

 

Guilty suspicions aside, today she would talk to him over a coffee, if he really _did_ coffee (he seemed to be an anorexic along with being an extreme insomniac), he could show her some holiday snaps, then explain his ‘bipolarity’ and why the hell his children were following her.

 

And yes, true to her word, the Cullen girl had been standing just beyond the tree line outside Esme’s house all night long for three days straight, and true to _her_ word, Esme had not told a soul, because who the fuck would believe that?

 

It was in the early morning of one of those sleepless nights when Esme very suddenly arrived at the conclusion that Carlisle Cullen was not a human being, or certainly not a normal one. 

 

This was suddenly so obvious she couldn’t believe her own stupidity.

 

However, the thought of him and his family being no doubt injected with serum in some government lab as part of a freaky genetics programme or being refugees from another planet didn’t repulse her, rather made her feel more sorry for him.

 

It was time to find out exactly how sorry for him she needed to feel.

 

After her shower, Esme curled her hair into actual ringlets instead of her natural waves and put on one of the shirts she’d often found too flashy (which turned into a real performance involving changing bras twice to find one that didn’t show through the lilac fabric). She also squeezed herself into a black pencil skirt that could possible be classed as a little _too_ figure flattering for Forks Hospital.

 

 _What_ ** _am_** _I doing?_ Esme thought to herself as she admired, or shall we say _considered,_ the finished result.

 

But hey! If the other women would talk, let them talk.  _Carlisle Cullen_ was her _friend,_ so in Forks-terms she was now well qualified to wear form-fitting clothing.

 

Plus, there was a part of her, yes, she admitted that now, that wanted him to look at her like he had that night. Like she was something valuable. Like she was something valuable _to him._

 

She put on a daring swathe of lipstick and pulled her hair into a ponytail before tottering downstairs on her only pair of actual heels (easier said then done.)

 

Charlie’s eyebrows flew up in surprise when he saw her.

 

“I see that ankle’s good as new, then. Special mid-week effort, huh?” he asked.

 

Esme grinned over her cornflakes.

 

“I’m dressing _professionally,”_ she said grandly, giving a small curtsey.

 

“Hmm,” Charlie harrumphed.

 

He had actually heard rumours that Esme was having a baby, which may or may not (Charlie’s informer, Rachel Newton, had put a heavy emphasis on _may_ ) be Dr Cullen’s seventh child.

 

Charlie knew this wasn’t true from the word ‘baby’ onwards, but still, all legends start somewhere, and Esme’s new look _did_ correspond to the doctor’s promised return to town.

 

Deciding to tackle the issue later, Charlie turned his attention back to other’s people’s problems.

 

“Now this is one of those times I do _not_ envy the fellas in Port Angeles,” Charlie said darkly, opening his newspaper. “There’s more on that awful murder.”

 

“Oh, yeah, someone mentioned that yesterday,” Esme said clopping over to collect Charlie’s empty coffee mug and read over his shoulder.

 

That someone was actually Christina who, for the last two days at work had been as _extremely nice_ to Esme as Esme was being _extremely nice_ to her.

 

“What happened?” Esme asked, then froze as she recognised the faces in the article and the headline jumped out at her.

 

**NEW REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AGAINST PORT ANGELES MASS MURDER VICTIMS**

 

Esme gasped as she scanned the article.

 

_…Seven males age twenty-five to thirty-seven…bodies discovered in a dumpster on Saturday morning…thought to have died after being doused with nitric acid…killer left inciting note ‘it’s not nice to be stripped in the street, is it?’ which started the inquest into the actions of the victims in life…_

 

“What a horrible way to die,” Esme heard Renée say conversationally as she dashed to the bathroom to throw up.

 

“Esme!”

 

He had done that. 

 

Carlisle Cullen had killed those men in the most… _awful_ way. And he’d done it for her.

 

“Esme!” Charlie said, grasping inexpertly at Esme’s clouds of hair, though it was a little too late for that.

 

“Charlie,” Esme gasped, ponytail dripping messy cornflake pieces onto the shirt. “Can you please call the hospital and tell them I’m sick?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” he said, gladly retreating slightly wide-eyed.

 

“Thanks,” she whispered as her entire picture of Dr Cullen collapsed around her, shards of hope glittering brokenly of the bathroom floor.

 

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be in the room with him.

 

Not after-

 

She heaved again over the toilet.

 

***

 

Carlisle, with the very same murder forefront in his mind, pulled up neatly outside his home.

 

He had already hunted on his way back from the airport so the plan was to get a quick shower, and then head out to work. 

 

After confronting Rosalie, that is.

 

He could smell the other vampires in the house, though not one of them had come to greet him, meaning they knew how angry he was.

 

Sighing, he pushed open his grand front door on its one remaining hinge.

 

“I’m home, if anyone’s interested to know,” he called. “Hello?”

 

The doctor sighed.

 

“‘How was your trip, Carlisle?’” he whispered to himself sarcastically, knowing that they could hear him perfectly well. “‘So nice to see you!’”

 

He rolled his eyes.

 

“Anybody?”

 

“Carlisle!” Bella said, appearing around the corner looking flustered. “Hi!”

 

“Hi,” he replied looking around.

 

“Oh, it’s you,” Emmett slurred in the voice of his Southern-English alter ego, popping up at the top of…where the stairs used to be, crushing a football between his enormous hands. “Back already, old sport?”

 

Carlisle cracked a grudging smile.

 

“Hello, Emmett. And…Rosalie and Edward? Avoiding me?”

 

“They thought they’d let you calm down a little first, old boy,” Emmett said with a nod.

 

Carlisle looked around the cavernous space that could have made a rather grand entrance hall to his home, had it not been obvious that the two floors above had somehow fallen through, care of Emmett.

 

He sighed.

 

“Just fetch them down, will you?” he said wearily, rubbing his hand over his face.

 

“Right away, Bond,” his son replied with a salute.

 

“So how _was_ your trip?” Bella asked.

 

“So-so,” Carlisle answered, forehead creased with the feeling that something fishy had been going on in his home while he had been out of the country. “Minor disagreement with Aro, but nothing we need to worry about.”

 

Finally realising what was bothering him, Carlisle’s eyes trawled the room for the source of the smell of very old paint.

 

Old paint and old canvas.

 

Quite a lot of it.

 

Frowning, he peered into the next room.

 

“Oh _bloody_ hell,” he huffed, kneading his temples as he caught sight of a new _family investment._

 

“Who the _hell_ brought this in here?” he demanded of Bella who was looking guilty. “…Is this a _Rembrandt?”_

 

He stared, horrified, at the enormous canvas that was lying carelessly against the wall. Potentially millions of dollars worth of enormous canvas.

 

“Emmett brought it in,” Rosalie’s voice told him. “But technically Alice bought it.”

 

“Dare I ask _why?”_ Carlisle replied, with an almost hysterical laugh.

 

“She doesn’t need a reason,” Edward said wryly, appearing next to Bella and clasping her anxiously-writhing hand.

 

 _“Five days_ I’ve been away, no, not even that…” Carlisle said, turning to look out of the newly-crazed glass of parlour window. “I just… _God_ …”

 

“Just let it out, Carlisle,” Emmett said knowledgeably. “It’s bad to keep negative feelings locked inside.”

 

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you!” Dr Cullen shouted.

 

“Here we go,” Edward muttered.

 

“What would you have had me do?” Rosalie snapped back to her livid father. “Just _leave_ them? Let them rape a _different_ woman instead?”

 

“Well I don’t know…” Carlisle said sarcastically. “Contact the _police,_ maybe?”

 

“Statistically, how likely would they be convicted?” Rosalie burst shrilly. “We have to take matters into our own hands!”

 

“You are not the fucking Avengers!” Carlisle yelled in response. “Have you _any_ idea?”

 

“It’s fine,” Rosalie insisted angrily, taking Carlisle’s concern as a personal attack on her aptitude. “We took no chances. There is no evidence whatsoever.”

 

“Fantastic!” Carlisle snapped. “Now the police will be wasting time and money on a case that it is impossible to solve!”

 

“You could have killed half of them and framed the other half for it,” Bella suggested.

 

“Exactly!” 

 

“Bit late for that, Bells,” Emmett chuckled.

 

“Oh, so they go to jail,” Rosalie pouted bitterly. “Boo hoo!”

 

“And are safely incarcerated!” Carlisle continued ardently. “Look, what ever attention you bring to their crimes will be lost under the horror of what happened to them! And you wanted the women they abused to come forwards, right?”

 

Rosalie nodded resolutely.

 

“But now if they do, they become a possible suspect, don’t they?” Carlisle spluttered. “Motive! You want a woman that they abused to be _arrested_ for their _murder?”_

 

“I would be _proud_ to go to jail for destroying those monsters!” Rosalie shrieked. 

 

“You would also be not quite sane, Rosalie,” Carlisle cried. “God, all this _hate!_ These…

 

Carlisle gesticulated wildly searching for the right words.

 

“These _crusades_ of yours!” he burst. “You really don’t see, do you? When you…I don’t know…paralyse a drunk driver, you are creating a lifetime of care responsibility for the people around them! Do you not _realise?”_

 

Rosalie’s expression soured and she looked oddly upset.

 

“Look at you…” she spat at the doctor. “Always so _good…”_

 

“Rosalie, you know I wasn’t…”

 

“Why are you not shouting at _Edward_ for this?” Rosalie demanded. “Why just _me?_ Why is nothing I do ever right? Why am I _never_ good enough for you?”

 

An river of blood ran before Carlisle’s eyes.

 

“BECAUSE I AM ONE PILE OF BODIES AWAY FROM A NERVOUS _BREAKDOWN!”_ he shrieked.

 

He dropped the volume a little to a pleading level, seeing his children frozen in shock, (all but Rosalie who looked like she wanted to burn out his eyes with a blowtorch).

 

“Is it too much to ask,” the doctor whispered. “While I just figure this all out, for the five of you just to…”

 

Carlisle froze, as he noted only four pairs of topaz eyes staring at him.

 

He felt the dread settle in his stomach as he drew in a brave breath to speak one of his least favourite sentences.

 

“Where is Alice?”


	27. Drowning In Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm, so this is a weird one…
> 
> I dunno.
> 
> Hope you like it.
> 
> Oh! And trigger warnings for car accidents, drugs and domestic abuse (...yeah, it's one of THOSE chapters...)
> 
> Carlisle does get his equivalent to the iconic Mr Darcy wet shirt moment, though, so maybe that'll make up for it...

Alice was giddy as she watched her speedometer needle creep upwards, little hands trembling with excitement on the steering wheel.

 

Wasn’t Edward just _super_ for buying her this car?

 

The line of police vehicles behind her screamed their ascent. 

 

Forks to Vegas and back again _was_ a long trip, but, well, Carlisle had been gone…and she really _had_ needed the money.

 

(Those people at Sotheby’s really were sticklers for payment, the rotters!)

 

Tiny Alice gave a shrill cry of delight, sounding a little like a skylark as she narrowly missed the car she knew was going to pull out in front of her, while with her free arm, the miniature girl hugged the sack of cash, gold and casino chips closer to her chest.

 

It wasn’t _her_ fault she had to _steal!_ Honest! 

 

It was just she looked too young for any casino to let her in! 

 

What’s a girl to do?

 

Alice skidded artfully through a stop sign and cut alarmingly onto the pavement to avoid the traffic she knew would be piling up before the Porsche yelled with ecstasy as it found a long, empty stretch of road.

 

Alice wove happily past the other road users who swerved conveniently behind her, blocking most of the cop cars. 

 

She let out a contented hum and wiggled her toes excitedly on the pedals she could barely reach, knowing that today was the only day of the year when the police helicopter, which would otherwise have caught her, was being repaired.

 

Just think how, in the past, seeing the future was a _bad_ thing! Crazy, right?

 

The minuscule vampire gazed at the pretty desert landscape out of the window, thinking fondly of Jasper and how wonderful it was going to be when they were all together again. For the first time ever, the _whole_ family. 

 

Twinkling a little through the tinted windows, Alice shot rainbows around the car as she fiddled absently with the radio, humming.

 

“Oh _this_ is a good one,” she said to herself happily.

 

She took in a big breath to prepare for the chorus. 

 

 _“SWEEEEEET_ CA-ROL- _IIIIIIIINE!”_ Alice sang at the top of her little lungs. “BAM BAM…bam… _bam…”_

 

Alice faltered as her vision began to close and she was in a very different car…in a very different place…in a very different situation.

 

_Rain slams the windows as the blob of colour moves closer. Closer and isn’t stopping. The screech of desperately applied brakes stings almost worse then the impact. The burn of rubber can’t quite mask the very distinct tang of fast flowing blood._

 

_Too much blood. Rivers of it. Oceans of it._

 

_The woman is practically drowning in it._

 

Alice slammed on her own brakes and skidded to the side of the highway, breathing hard as she fumbled for her phone, her own surroundings coming back into focus.

 

“No, no, no, no,” she whimpered. “This can’t happen. Oh God! Oh God…shit! _Fuck!”_

 

In a blur, Carlisle’s _vampire-emergencies-only_ cell phone was dialled.

 

“PICK UP FUCK _DAMMIT!”_ Alice screeched at the screen before she heard her father’s voice on the line.

 

Before he could demand to know what the hell she thought she was doing, Alice was screaming at him.

 

“Carlisle! It’s Esme! Hurry!”

 

His voice was frantic on the other side.

 

“Don’t let her get in the car!”

 

***

 

Carlisle Cullen.

 

Carlisle Cullen.

 

Carlisle Cullen.

 

Esme closed her dry, aching eyes.

 

Carlisle Cullen.

 

Dr…Carlisle Cullen.

 

But what else was he? 

 

A stalker. A killer.

 

Esme shook her woozy head as she followed the doctor’s retreating form down the corridor.

 

Because after seeing the newspaper article, everything had changed. 

 

Esme…was a _murderer._

 

If she hadn’t been so stupid to have attracted the men’s attention, they would still be alive. It was her fault.

 

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them screaming and writhing as they were burnt alive.

 

Consequently, Esme had slept badly for the previous two nights since her discovery and had almost asked Renée to drive her into work but stopped herself, remembering that her sister-in-law’s baby could technically be born at any moment if she came early, and the last thing Charlie or his wife wanted to be doing was driving the lunatic to work, especially since said lunatic had imposed so much on their hospitality already.

 

 _But I’m his sister,_ Esme thought. _I would be happy to have Charlie stay with me indefinitely. Do I really have such a double standard? Am I really so different to everyone else? Gah, I’m so arrogant!_

 

Perhaps it would be better if she _did_ plough into a tree an a sleep-deprived haze and kill herself. That way she wouldn’t be a bother to anyone anymore.

 

Oh! Unless Carlisle got there first, and drowned her in a bathtub of burning gasoline or something.

 

When Esme had caught sight of herself in the mirror that morning, she had been pale as death, shaking, and there were bruise-like shadows under her eyes.

 

She had almost resembled Carlisle, except she looked as ugly as he was beautiful. 

 

Esme wasn’t well, and she knew she had to confront the doctor, preferably in public. She couldn't go on like this.

 

“Dr Cullen,” she said once she had caught up with him. “Can…I have a word?”

 

“Sure,” he said pleasantly, though she caught the small flicker of shock in his eyes when he saw how rough she looked.

 

“Carlisle,” Esme hissed. “I am at my wits’. End. _Please_ tell me what I can do to make you _stop.”_

 

“Make me stop?”

 

“Those _guys,_ Carlisle!” Esme choked. “You…you…”

 

“Esme, not now,” he said with quiet urgency. “Another time. Later. At lunch. I’ll stay after my shift.”

 

“There _is_ no other time, Carlisle!” Esme whispered desperately. “I can’t keep on like this. I-”

 

“Oh! Donna!” Carlisle said, leaping across the corridor, to the delight of the passing student nurse. “Just the person! Will you make sure Mr Bennett gets his fluid levels checked when they next do the rounds?”

 

She nodded eagerly.

 

“Thank you,” he said with the smile that would keep her going all day. “You’re a superstar.”

 

“Are you even listening to me?” Esme hissed as the younger woman blushed and skipped away to deliver Dr Cullen’s message.

 

“Of course I’m listening, Esme,” Carlisle muttered, strained. “But I’m on the clock, here. I have rounds to do.”

 

“Except no you _don’t,”_ Esme told him. “Because you got off your shift ten minutes ago.”

 

“I…”

 

“I write your schedule, Carlisle!” she reminded him. “And that’s the problem with lies, isn’t it? You forget the ones you’ve told.”

 

“Esme, what is this about?” Carlisle demanded, with the audacity to pretend that she, _she_ was the crazy one.

 

She…well, she _wasn’t,_ was she? _Right?_ She wasn’t. She was sane.

 

“You were my doctor when I was seven years old,” Esme insisted.

 

Carlisle blew out his cheeks.

 

“Look, I just have one of those faces,” he said ardently. “You probably just saw someone who-”

 

 _“No one_ has a face like you!” Esme cried, tears finally leaking from her eyes. “Are you even human? Why don’t you eat? Why don’t you sleep? Huh? _What do you want from me?”_

 

“I think you might be a little tired, Esme,” Carlisle said gently, though looking around fugitively at all the potential witnesses of a very nasty vampire-secrecy breach. “Go home, get some rest, I can sign you out.”

 

“Yeah, too _right_ I’m tired!” Esme hissed tearfully. “You know how much sleep someone can get with _Rosalie_ outside their window all night? Or…or _you?_ Or wondering if they’re next on some kind of twisted _kill list?_ Or worse still, if someone is killing on their _behalf?”_

 

“Esme, I really don’t know what you’re…”

 

“But you _do!”_ she rasped. “And you won’t _admit_ it!”

 

“Esme, okay, I was just on my way out,” Carlisle said quickly, seeing the situation spiralling out of his control. “I will just grab my bag and then we’ll go somewhere and have a conversation. Essie? You know I can’t say anything here…Please calm down.”

 

“Calm _down?_ I have had no. Fucking. Sleep! People are _dying_ because of me because you…”

 

Esme looked down at the doctor’s perfect porcelain hands.

 

“I have to use the ladies’ room,” she decided suddenly.

 

“Esme, just wait,” Carlisle begged. “I can’t talk to you in public, but I swear, there is a perfectly good explanation for-"

 

“Get your hand _off_ me,” Esme shuddered.

 

From the coffee machine, Christina watched eagerly as Esme threw off Carlisle’s arm and turned, crying, towards the bathrooms by the hospital entrance.

 

Esme ran to the nearest stall and gagged over the toilet, but there was nothing to come up.

 

She looked at her shaking hands.

 

_“Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me? We’re taking you to the hospital…”_

 

_Esme is red and blue._

 

_Red and blue flash beyond the eyelids she’d shut tight about halfway through the event. It was bad enough to feel, hear and even **smell** what was happening to her without having to see it too…_

 

_“Ma’am, can you tell us your name?”_

 

_“That’s Esme Evenson! That’s my neighbour! Oh Jesus, what’s happened to her?”_

 

_“Sir, please step away from the casualty. Mrs Evenson, you’ve been hurt quite bad but we’ll get you to someone who can help you…”_

 

_“Oh my God! Is that Mrs Evenson?”_

 

_“She’s lucky, a minute more and she wouldn’t have made it…”_

 

_“Whoa! A robbery?”_

 

_“No, sir. Would you please go back to your home…”_

 

_“Yes, time really is of the essence when dealing with these kind of psychopaths…”_

 

_“No, but Esme’s pregnant! Someone tell the…Officer! She’s pregnant!”_

 

_“We’ll get some…Sir! Please step away from the casualty!”_

 

_“Can we get some oxygen, here?”_

 

_“Mom? What happened to Esme? Is she **dead?”**_

 

_**“Ma’am!**  Would you get your daughter **away** from the casualty!”_

 

_“Alright! Everybody is to return to their homes immediately! Move it!”_

 

_“Mrs Evenson…we did everything we could. It was just to early for him…”_

 

_“Esme, at some point you will have to face what happened to you,” said the blank-faced psychologist. “And you will have a chance to do it right.”_

 

The red and blue faded to salmon pink, and Esme was in the washroom.

 

“Esme…are you…are you okay?” Christina asked cautiously.

 

Whatever could be said of her gossiping habits, Christina didn’t like to see other women curled up on the floor of public bathrooms in apparent shock.

 

“Shit!” Christina said, surveying the damage and stepping back a little in alarm. “I…”

 

“Christina, can you tell me if Dr Cullen is out there?” Esme gasped.

 

“Um…no he went to your office…” Christina told her. “Esme what is going on?”

 

Her eyes lit up excitedly.

 

“Did you take an _overdose?”_

 

“Would you please go tell Dr Cullen I’m in here?” Esme breathed.

 

“Um…shouldn’t I, like, get-”

 

_“Christina!”_

 

“Er…sure,” she nodded and then strode off extremely importantly to fetch Dr Cullen and tell the town that Esme had lost her mind.

 

But no, no she hadn’t.

 

In full-on Jason Bourne-mode, Esme locked the cubicle door from the inside and, for once blessing her small size, she arduously shimmied underneath the door, whimpering with frustration at the time it was taking.

 

Sacrificing her jacket, she flung it back into the stall.

 

He’d think she was still in there.

 

Then, after seeing no Dr Cullen in sight, (who was no doubt held up trying to get some coherency out of an excited Christina), Esme ran out to her car and started the engine.

 

After three shaky minutes on the road, she still hadn’t seen the red convertible or the black Mercedes behind her.

 

 _Perhaps I’ve managed it!_ she thought as the rain got heavier and heavier, though dread was creeping through every capillary of her body.

 

 

Without her jacket she was shivering.

 

_“Ma’am…What happened?…Can you tell us what happened here? Okay, ma’am…Please stop! You’re hurting yourself! She’s…Can we get someone over here!”_

 

_“He was her husband. He…had a bit to drink, got a little upset. We believe the attack was unprovoked.”_

 

_“Yeah, I knew Charles…And yeah, okay, he liked a drink, but I never thought…”_

 

_“She’s haemorrhaging!”_

 

_“Mrs Evenson, you have to stay calm for us but I think you’re baby’s coming a bit early…”_

 

_“So…there are options for you…when this is all over, and the psychiatrist has discharged you…”_

 

_“So I can’t…”_

 

_“Er, no, Mrs Ev-Miss Platt, I’m afraid after the procedure…now…you won’t be able to have any more children. We did what we needed to stop the bleeding…”_

 

_“Miss Platt!”_

 

_“What are you going to call him, Es?”_

 

_“I don’t know, Charlie after his uncle? Maybe Joseph. Little Joe.”_

 

_“Come up to Washington and see us, Es! It’s been so long.”_

 

_“Yeah, sorry, Charlie…it’s a little difficult at the moment…”_

 

_“YOU FUCKING BITCH!”_

 

_“Sorry, you received how many domestic calls form this address before this incident?”_

 

_“Are you a…police?”_

 

_“Yes ma’am, and we’re going to get you somewhere safe.”_

 

_“My brother…my brother’s a…he’s um…he’s a cop.”_

 

_“Save you’re strength ma’am…Please, don’t talk…”_

 

_“My baby…”_

 

“Shut up,” Esme whimpered, tears pouring down her face like the river forming on the empty road. “Please be quiet.”

 

But suddenly the road wasn’t so empty. A smear of silver was skidding towards her.

 

It looked like she _would_ be getting silence after all.

 

Esme didn’t know where the other car had come from. Perhaps she had willed it into existence?

 

Her foot automatically went for the brake in a slightly half-hearted move because, as Bella could have cheerfully informed her, if the other car is traveling at eighty-five miles-per-hour, and you are stationary, the collision speed is still eighty-five miles-per-hour.

 

Oh, and that’ll kill you.

 

Lucky then, that the car didn’t hit her.

 

The rain turned dark suddenly, like drops of ink, so Esme didn’t exactly _see_ Dr Cullen before her car started to fly. 

 

She soured over the other vehicle and then touched down gently, as if nothing had happened, while there was a shriek of metal and a bang as the silver car ploughed into the forest.

 

Then the ink cleared from Esme’s windshield, leaving just smoke.

 

Esme gave a whimper and her shaking limbs started to feel numb, as if her body couldn’t quite believe it had survived. Despite this, her brain already knew she had survived, and somehow _why_ she had survived.

 

Before she could register the movement, Esme was standing outside the car, feeling the rain beating down on her spinning head, watching the other car burn and watching Carlisle watch _her_ from where he was silhouetted against the flames, crackling merrily despite the water that was pouring down.

 

“Esme,” he said cautiously, as if she were a skittish horse and not an impossibly scared woman.

 

“Oh my God!” she cried, knees buckling slightly.

 

“Esme.”

 

“We have to…we have to call an ambulance!” she rushed, staggering drunkenly forwards.

 

“No, he’s dead, Esme,” Carlisle said firmly. “He’s dead. Let’s just go. I’m taking you back home.”

 

“We have to tell the police!” Esme shouted, suddenly furious.

 

With what, she couldn’t quite articulate.

 

“Esme, they’ll find meth in his blood,” Carlisle said calmly, begging for eye-contact. “He was driving on drugs, on a wet road, he ploughed into a tree and died instantly. That is as complicated as this story needs to be. Our involvement just makes it messier. Esme?”

 

“He’s _dead?”_ she whispered, eyes wide.

 

“And you’re still _alive,_ Esme,” Carlisle said, his voice breaking as finally he choked up.

 

“What did you do?” Esme asked him breathlessly.

 

“I changed the course of the future, is what I did,” he told her, voice barely audible over the rain. “It would have been my fault if you’d died. I’ve pushed you to this. I’ve scared you. And I’m sorry.”

 

“Carlisle!” Esme suddenly shrieked, just figuring the thing out. “You _saved my life!”_

 

Carlisle shrugged, a little mollified.

 

“Well, it is said that the best cure is always prevention,” he said with an apologetic smile.

 

Hearing somehow what she had been waiting for - that inevitable sweet, but strangely smart-ass comment, Esme splashed forwards and glued her arms around his waist.

 

“Whoa, okay. Shhhh, Esme, it’s alright,” Carlisle said, stroking the soaking hair out of her eyes.

 

She shook her head into his chest, her whole body convulsing with sobs.

 

“It’s alright, Esme, you’re alright,” he murmured into her ear. “I know this situation with us is extremely strange, but I’m on your side here. Though…we might have to…”

 

Carlisle wrinkled his nose.

 

“…Leave pretty soon, unless we want to be at the police station all day, and I don’t think we do.”

 

He could barely concentrate. The feeling of Esme’s arms around him filled Carlisle with a joy he had never experienced before. The need to protect, to provide but that he would be _thanked_ for it. He was a partner, a confidant, a saviour.

 

The arms tightened to a degree painful to a human and the doctor felt a sob build in his granite chest.

 

He wasn't feeling a _doctor's_ triumph...

 

Somebody _loved_ him.

 

After a few more moments of rapture, however, Carlisle began to wonder if Esme had drowned.

 

“Esme? Are you alright?” he asked, feeling her heartbeat fluttering against him. “Please say something…”

 

“Will you drive?” Esme whispered to his tie. “If that’s alright. I’m a bit tired.”

 

Carlisle chuckled.

 

“I think that might be best,” he told her. “You can spend the drive apologising to your upholstery instead.”

 

Yes, they were both half-drowned, though Carlisle managed to pull the whole thing off as some kind of Mer-King look, Esme looked like a stray cat in a thunderstorm.

 

Carlisle picked the cat up into his arms.

 

“Come on, Essie,” he said, carrying her to her own passenger seat. “Home time.”

 

They spent the drive in silence, but with Carlisle’s hand on Esme’s shoulder - whether to comfort her or himself he didn't know, but she didn't seem to mind the gesture.

 

“Esme, I’ll tell you tomorrow, the truth about me,” Carlisle whispered urgently when they had arrived at the blessedly empty house. “I…I’m not strong enough right now.”

 

“You lifted a car.”

 

“I…”

 

Carlisle gave Esme a funny look.

 

“I just meant emotionally,” he explained. “I…”

 

“Yes, I…got that,” she sighed. “I was joking.”

 

“Oh, good,” he said, looking down to fiddle with his cuffs.

 

After a beat of supermassive silence, Carlisle laughed nervously.

 

“This is…um…this is a bit awkward now,” he grimaced.

 

“Yup…” Esme agreed, looking straight ahead, seeing only a sheet of rain.

 

She then turned to her companion, now doing the same, and took in the disgusting snot-and-tears stain down the front Carlisle’s shirt.

 

“Ew, I’m sorry about…I think I owe you a shirt,” she said apologetically.

 

“Wha…? Oh, no, that’s nothing,” he laughed. “I’ve been covered in worse. And you owe me nothing, always remember that.”

 

He gestured to the downpour around him.

 

“Besides, we’re in the middle of God’s washing machine today…” Carlisle said cheerfully.

 

“God’s washing machine…” Esme repeated shaking her head in amazement. “Right then.”

 

“And Esme, there’ll be no Rosalie tonight, I promise,” Carlisle said quickly, failing to envision Rosalie taking guard duty in such bad weather. “And I’m sorry about…that...this week.”

 

“I know,” she said. “But…I think there’ll be a ‘Carlisle’, though, won’t there?”

 

The doctor’s face crumpled.

 

“Esme, I’m sorry I-”

 

“Just bring an umbrella, won’t you?” Esme said.

 

Carlisle laughed.

 

“I will, yes,” he promised.

 

“Now, do you need a ride home?” Esme asked him sternly. “Or to go get your car? A coat?”

 

Carlisle shrugged.

 

“Nah I’ll just…”

 

He gestured vaguely to the forest.

 

“Walk, I guess…”

 

“Well…take care…” Esme whispered. “And I’ll…see you tomorrow.”

 

“And not a minute sooner,” Carlisle nodded. “Got it.”

 

 _Yes,_ thought Esme as he vanished into her beloved trees. _You have indeed._


	28. Should I Be Scared?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, and welcome.
> 
> This is THE chapter, everyone. 
> 
> Yes, the one you were all probably reading for in the first place, and now, over 50,000 words in, we’ve finally got there.
> 
> Now, I have agonised over how best to write this (given what has gone on between these two), to the point where I was just so done with all of it, so I decided Esme feels the same.
> 
> This is her last ditch attempt at sanity and it backfires spectacularly.
> 
> So, without further ado, Chapter 28: The Truth, by Carlisle Cullen…

“Okkkkaaay,” Charlie breathed, sipping his mid-morning coffee. “Wassis name? Carlisle Cullen…”

 

“I can’t _believe_ you’re actually doing this,” Renée smirked, dragging her chair around the kitchen table to sit next to him. “Chief Swan, the _Facebook stalker_. Never would have known…”

 

“Well, you’re right, you never _do_ know about people,” Charlie said, typing into the search engine with two very precise fingers as was his way. “And any person my sister shows the most remote degree of romantic interest in is deserving of a google search.”

 

“Shouldn’t we…wait until she comes down?” Renée wondered guiltily. “So we’re not…doing this behind her back…so much?”

 

“Nah, let her sleep in,” Charlie said absently. “I mean, since she’s actually _sleeping_ for once…”

 

He took another sip of coffee and sucked a breath between his teeth.

 

 _“Jesus,_ this decaf stuff is poison,” he said roughly. “ _Why_ does she buy-Oh! Here we go…”

 

Charlie sat up interestedly and clicked on the first Wikipedia page.

 

“Dr Carlisle Cullen…” he read tonelessly. “Born in London, February 1967…"

 

Both his own and Renée’s forehead creased in unison.

 

“Hang on,” Charlie said. “Bull _shit_ he’s…what fifty…two? _Three?_ Nah, nah, nah…”

 

“He fifty- _three!”_ Renée squealed. “No way! He looks so much younger.”

 

“Way too fucking old for Esme…” Charlie muttered.

 

“But I suppose he must be if his oldest kids are seniors,” Renée mused. “…So, they’re eighteen…and he probably finished Med school before having them…So he was maybe late twenties…early thirties…yeah, must be.”

 

“Graduated Oxford University...” Charlie sighed, resting his cheek on his wrist like a bored kid.” …Blah _blah_ …distinction in…yeah…fuck off…early admission…yeah… _sure_ he fucking did…Philanthropic work…Conducted valuable research for the society of cardiologists…yeah, whatever…”

 

“The man is _amazing!”_ Renée gasped.

 

“Sounds like a prick to me,” Charlie muttered. “Smug douchebag.”

 

“Charlie! Why do you hate this guy so much all of a sudden?” Renée demanded. “I thought you said you liked him when you got your tetanus?”

 

“That was _before_ he was trying to get with my sister!” Charlie hissed, but quietly, aware of her presence upstairs. “Everyone is saying so!”

 

“Yes!” Renée whispered conspiratorially. “Christina called me yesterday, after Esme was sick at work, and said she and Carlisle had some kind of fight and Esme started driving home, but then he rushed out, literally _on foot,_ after her! She said it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen!”

 

“See, that’s what I’m not a hundred percent happy with,” Charlie murmured, half to himself. “This _running after her…”_

 

“Esme does weird things to the male populace,” Renée agreed. “It has to be said.”

 

Then, she was struck with a pang of Forks nosiness.

 

“Hey! What about his Facebook?” she asked eagerly, taking over the laptop.

 

“Doesn’t seem to have it,” Charlie said. “No Twitter…Instagram…Nor any of the kids, from what I’ve heard, or heard _lack of,_ at the station…”

 

“Hey, what about this…” Renée interrupted, clicking on a news story that was suggested.

 

**CAMPER DROWNS IN RIVER RAPIDS**

 

“Oh my God,” Renée whispered after the story had loaded. “So _that_ was Elizabeth Cullen…”

 

Kate’s face beamed, a little cheekily, from the screen.

 

“Poor Esme,” Renée said. “She was beautiful.”

 

“Er, poor _Elizabeth,”_ Charlie reminded her. “She’s _dead.”_

 

“And those poor kids!”

 

“Yeah…poor kids…” Charlie said with a frown as he read the article. 

 

As Chief Swan’s eyes skimmed further down the page, the frown deepened.

 

“Now that _is_ interesting…”

 

***

 

At seven on the dot, a glossy black Mercedes pulled up outside the Swan house. 

 

It waited, before the driver remembered his manners, found his courage and walked up to ring the doorbell.

 

It was Renée who opened the door.

 

“Hi!” she said excitedly, seeing as _actual Dr Cullen_ was at her _actual door_ wanting to take her _actual sister-in-law_ out. “Are you after Esme?”

 

“Yes,” he said with a winning smile. “Thank you, Mrs Swan.”

 

Renée beamed and went to drag her sister-in-law away from Charlie.

 

“Dr Cullen’s at the door for you, Esme!" she whispered, though Carlisle could hear every word. "He looks _so. Hot!”_

 

“I’m sure he does,” Esme said with a tiredness that stung Carlisle as though she had proclaimed his ugliness at the top of her lungs.

 

He breathed nervously.

 

_Elephant Boy! Elephant Boy!_

 

However, when Esme appeared he realised it wasn’t lack of enthusiasm to see him that was the problem, rather she looked almost as dead on her feet as she had done the previous day.

 

He felt a punch of guilt knowing that it was his alarming oddities that were keeping her from the sleep a human so desperately needed and, most likely, when he told her the truth, this wasn’t likely to change.

 

“Carlisle,” Esme said blandly, though clasping her hands with nerves.

 

“Esme,” he replied with warmth. “I was hoping to take you out to one of my favourite spots in the area to see the sunset.”

 

Charlie, who had appeared with his arms crossed and seeming rather unimpressed with the whole thing, looked at the doctor as if he were insane, and then out to the cloudy sky again to make his point more obvious.

 

“I have it on good authority that there will be a few minutes of sun before sunset tonight,” Carlisle said with a confident nod.

 

Charlie just raised his eyebrows and rocked back on his heels a little which was a very characteristic gesture of his.

 

“Okay,” he said at last. “Well have fun you two. And take care.”

 

He eyed Esme sternly.

 

“Sure,” she said with a brave smile, her attempt at hiding her nerves.

 

Either way she had to do this. She needed answers.

 

“Bye!” called Renee happily as Esme got mechanically into Carlisle’s car while her husband hoped that he’d see her get out of it at some point.

 

“Esme,” said Carlisle softly.

 

Her heart fluttered with a combination of fear and warmth at the sound of his velvet voice.

 

“Are you still up for this?” he asked seriously.

 

She let out a taut breath but nodded.

 

Carlisle smiled, relieved.

 

“Good,” he said pulling away. “I’m glad. And I _am_ just showing you the scenery around here, that wasn’t a cover up for something sinister.”

 

“Glad to hear it,” Esme said, unsure how to treat the man who had thrice saved her from a terrible fate but was also potentially a superhuman serial killer.

 

She stole a glance at her driver who was extremely busy concentrating on the road, which wasn’t normally a habit of his while driving.

 

She watched his face which was perfectly impassive and strangely still. For a little while she couldn’t figure out why.

 

“You’re not blinking,” she told him, and sounded more accusing than she meant to.

 

He chuckled.

 

“Not much point after yesterday, is there?”

 

Esme remembered the sensation of flight and the dirt from her car’s axle on Carlisle’s hands.

 

“No, I suppose not,” she conceded.

 

“I _can,_ if I'm making you uncomfortable,” the doctor offered courteously.

 

Esme laughed.

 

“No, the not blinking is okay with me,” she said quietly. “Not really at the top of my worry list right now.”

 

Carlisle gave her a tight smile.

 

“Nor mine, really.”

 

After a long silence, Esme noticed Carlisle becoming less and less immobile. He was almost fidgeting.

 

“Would…you like the radio on?” he asked at last, with a hint of desperation.

 

Esme just looked at him.

 

“No thanks, I’m just content to listen to the engine of a car I can’t afford,” she said dryly, before leaning her head back in her seat hopelessly like she was halfway into a twelve hour flight.

 

Carlisle squirmed. 

 

And Esme watched him do it. She felt that after weeks of being followed by this man, it was her turn to scrutinise him.

 

His eyes shone desert gold and his blond lashes framed them quite prettily. They were sad eyes, though, which aside from making Esme sad herself, did warn of a difficult conversation looming.

 

Despite the July cold, the doctor was wearing only a light yellow shirt, almost like his hair, and looked bizarrely angelic as he drove.

 

Beautiful and suddenly eminently touchable.

 

If she reached out and touched him, what would he do? Would he stop he? Hurt her? Would it be worth finding out?

 

His forehead creased and smoothed as rapidly as a blink and he pursed his lips a little, making a rather sweet dimple in his bottom lip.

 

“You’re…looking,” Carlisle said.

 

“I’m sure I’m not the first,” Esme replied.

 

“No, you’re not.” 

 

“Well, you’re more interesting than the trees out of the window,” she said softly. “And I’ve not told anyone else that before.”

 

He smiled.

 

“And you’re much more interesting than the road,” he told her truthfully. “But for your sake I’m pretending to pay attention.”

 

“The gentleman…” Esme murmured and turned to look out of the window.

 

She watched the emerald blur of trees flash past the window as they travelled faster than Esme could really comprehend. Though it felt more like a space craft than a car at the speed they were going, Esme trusted the doctor to drive like that.

 

Even though after Charles what Carlisle was doing should terrify her, it didn’t. 

 

She just didn’t care.

 

Perhaps she was giving up, losing her fight?

 

‘Going towards the light’, closing her eyes?

 

She wanted to, actually. 

 

Throwing any kind of politeness to the wind, Esme snuggled into her seat and closed her eyes, feeling Carlisle beside her like a second pulse in her veins - though he didn’t have his own which she had found out whilst mushed against where his heart should have been. 

 

She was so exhausted of all the madness, she didn’t even give a shit.

 

“We’re almost there,” Carlisle said.

 

“Almost where?” Esme said tiredly.

 

“Somewhere special to me,” the doctor explained. “Somewhere I’ve never taken anyone else.”

 

“Should I be scared?” she murmured, eyes still closed.

 

“Of the place? No, you’ll like it. It’s pretty.”

 

“Should I be scared of _you?”_ she added.

 

“That’s for you to decide,” Carlisle sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

 

“Cool,” Esme breathed and turned her head away again.

 

They lapsed back into silence.

 

After a much longer time of ‘listening to the engine’, Carlisle puled onto a smaller road.

 

Now, Esme _did_ open her eyes.

 

The trees were darker here, the terrain thicker, the air a little heavier.

 

Or maybe she just wasn’t breathing so well.

 

Very soon, the doctor pulled over in one of the few passing-places on the single-track road.

 

“This isn’t the place yet,” Calisle said quickly, in case she judged to soon.

 

“Now we’re walking?” Esme asked, having worn her boots like Carlisle had asked her to.

 

He nodded, and in a whisper of movement, Esme’s door was open for her, then closed behind her as soon as she as found the soft mossy ground with her shaky legs.

 

Esme had often been called Bambi at school. Yes, the deer, wandering _stupidly_ through the forest behind a predator animal.

 

Walking herself further and further away from any potential help when the inevitable happened and Carlisle became someone who was not the Dr Cullen Forks would have recognised.

 

Carlisle walked slowly and Esme, who was a keen hiker, was almost impatient with his pace, but something in the way he held his shoulders told her he was nervous, and, like herself was taking courage from the damp pine smell. His fingers brushed the pine branches near his hands like they were hands themselves which Esme found mesmerising to watch. He even held some of the bigger branches out of Esme’s way.

 

As the trees thinned, the pair came out by a big, sapphire blue lake, framed with craggy mountains.

 

The place had the aura of a massive airy cathedral and reverberated with deafening silence, broken only by the sigh of trees and the giggles of the water lapping on stone.

 

For a moment Esme forgot herself, and gasped in reverence. It was literally breathtaking.

 

“I’m glad you like it,” said Carlisle, dragging his eyes away from the awe-inspiring beauty and back towards the view that he was meant to be showing her.

 

Esme said nothing and they stood for a moment in silence, a heavy, sweltering silence. 

 

When enough time had elapsed for her human senses to take in all they could, Carlisle gestured for Esme to sit on one of the outcroppings of rock and he came to perch uncomfortably a polite distance away form her.

 

She was nervous, but so was her guide who had forgotten to breathe.

 

Finally, he _did_ take a breath, and started to speak.

 

“See the mist?” he began, pointing towards the forest where mist was pouring from the top of the trees onto the vitreous surface of the lake. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes,” Esme agreed.

 

“I…um…really hoped I’d be able to show it too you like this,” Carlisle continued. “I’ve been wanting to bring you here for a while, actually.”

 

He took another nervous breath and suddenly Esme longed to comfort him.

 

“Hey,” she said softly. “I’m listening. You said on the way back from Port Angeles I could tell you anything, you can tell _me_ this, Carlisle.”

 

“Alright…” he breathed.

 

Esme’s brow knotted with sympathy - he was almost trembling.

 

“When I was growing up, occasionally my father, you know, the pastor,” Carlisle said, meeting her eye shyly. “Well he used to take me out of London to where some friends of his had an estate in Hampshire, which is in the South of England, if you didn’t know. Very beautiful.”

 

He coughed.

 

“Anyway, we’d go,” he continued, gaining strength from Esme’s continued presence. “And this…very affluent family had their own chapel, and he used to hold a service there for them, usually around Easter time. A very exclusive affair, which...”

 

He made a kind of despairing gesture and laughed bitterly.

 

“Is not the point of Christian faith _at all,_ but there we go,” he sighed. “I remember the estate had swathes and swathes of land, parks with big oak trees and the deer would run across…”

 

He swept his hand out in front of them to demonstrate.

 

“One morning I climbed out of my bedroom window to watch the sunrise, this _beautiful_ late spring sunrise and the mist just floated like that.”

 

He gazed off into the distance looking so far away Esme became suddenly afraid he’d never return.

 

“It was the most magical thing I had ever seen…” he breathed.

 

 ** _You’re_** _the most magical thing_ ** _I’ve_** _ever seen,_ Esme thought, watching the focus come slowly back into his cinder-toffee eyes.

 

“Of course,” Carlisle said. “I didn’t factor in how I would get back _in_ to the house for breakfast undetected and my father caught me…”

 

He laughed a little nervously.

 

“Yes…my father…he was, um…he was a bit of a shit, really.”

 

He rubbed his jaw absently where the memory of bruises still throbbed sometimes.

 

“Where was your mother?” Esme asked him gently.

 

“Dead,” he replied harshly. “She died giving birth to me. A very sweet lady. I wish she could have raised me.”

 

He turned to face Esme and took a deep breath.

 

Here it comes.

 

“Esme, my mother died in the year 1630,” he said slowly, so she could savour every syllable of this impossible truth.

 

“So…that would make you…?”

 

“Three hundred and eighty-nine years old,” he told her. “Yes.”

 

Esme considered him for a while, all the tonnes and tonnes of his incredible character.

 

His charm and wisdom. 

 

His beauty and kindness. 

 

His wit and humour.

 

His tact and patience.

 

His impossibly fierce _love_ for other creatures.

 

“You know I thought you would be older,” she said seriously, and Carlisle released the tension he’d been holding in the form of a slightly hysterical peal of laughter.

 

“Not the response I was expecting but you never fail to surprise me,” he chuckled disbelievingly, but not without that air of handsomeness that followed him everywhere he went like an annoying mosquito.

 

“You seem so timeless…” Esme said peering at him with her newly-opened eyes. “…So _ancient…”_

 

He raised an ancient eyebrow.

 

“In a good way!” she said quickly, and that was true.

 

“But you haven’t asked me how or why this possible yet,” he said ruefully, with sadness in his eyes.

 

 _Esme’s_ eyes, as they had a habit of doing, demanded the truth. Their impossible chocolate depths seemed to move Carlisle’s mouth for him.

 

“My family…we’re all vampires,” he burst.

 

There. He’d said it. How did it come out so bluntly? He had spent all night meticulously planning what to say, how he’d gently feed it to her, drop by drop. Allow _acclimatisation._

 

But it was always like that with Esme.

 

“So…your wife...?”

 

“Is made up,” he said quickly. “I’ve never married. And I’ve certainly not _widowed_ myself, despite what the wolves would have you believe.”

 

“Wolves?” Esme breathed. _“Wolves?_ You mean the Quillutes…Oh wow, _really?”_

 

Carlisle raised his eyebrows.

 

“You seem more impressed about the wolves than my being a vampire,” he laughed cautiously. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed.”

 

“No! You’re very cool too!” Esme cut in quickly with a giddy laugh. “I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just…”

 

Esme laughed louder.

 

“It’s quite a lot to take in…”

 

“Yes,” Carlisle said, gazing out across the water to avoid the eyes of his executioner. “And once you’ve taken it in, it's going to dawn on you that being here with me isn’t the safest place to be.”

 

Esme looked confused for the smallest of seconds.

 

“Carlisle you…” she spluttered. “I can’t even walk down a _street_ without…”

 

She took his cheek in her palm and turned his face towards her.

 

“You’ve saved me!” she cried. “Several times! From those _guys!_ From the _car!_ From the _wolves!”_

 

“I didn’t save you from the wolves,” Carlisle said with wintery bitterness, locking his fingers together tautly. “They saved you from _me.”_

 

Esme pursed her lips nervously.

 

“The day you were chased…” Carlisle continued.

 

He took a big breath.

 

“I was hunting you,” he told her in a gruff voice, catching her eyes with his and not letting go. “I have been hunting you since that first day at the hospital. I am… _infatuated_ with you.”

 

He looked passionately ashamed.

 

“I’m the ‘snake’, Esme,” he confessed. “I’m the shadow in the forest, which you knew. But what you did _not_ know is that it’s because...”

 

His clasped hands tightened around each other.

 

“Your blood, Esme,” he growled. “Is like a _drug_ to me. Like…”

 

He cast his eyes to the heavens for Divine inspiration.

 

“Like my own personal blend of heroin,” he whispered with a dry a half-laugh. “To put it another way.”

 

“So…this is why I’m here?” Esme breathed, suddenly realising something.

 

She realised she was going to surrender to him. She always was.

 

“Because I’m…special to you?” she continued, softer still but, of course, he caught every syllable. “Because you can’t keep away from me?”

 

“Yes,” Carlisle said gruffly, an expression on his chiselled face that Esme wasn’t sure a human could replicate.

 

That was the irony of it all. 

 

How could beauty such as his mask such disgust? 

 

She could almost smell it on him. The hatred, _his_ hatred. For _himself._

 

“And today I…I just wanted somewhere…private…for us,” he finished.

 

“What are you going to do?” Esme asked in a papery voice, more confidently then she thought possible over the rushing of her apparently irresistible blood in her ears.

 

Her body _certainly_ knew what he was going to do and her heart sprinted in her heaving chest.

 

The doctor knew what he was going to do too.

 

Carlisle’s eyes were midnight-dark as he took hold of Esme, almost as though another force had invaded him.

 

Esme’s heart thudded harder as she felt the cold of his hand on her upper arm through the fabric of her coat. It was a kind hand, despite all.

 

Esme closed her eyes as the predator leaned in, and she was surprisingly calm in anticipation of the moment that, subconsciously, they had both known was coming.

 

They had seen in one another’s face a kind of mutual understanding, a biological truth.

 

“It _is_ a beautiful place, Carlisle,” she whispered.

 

“Yes, it is,” he agreed in a syrupy voice.

 

And then they were kissing.


	29. Flying

“Do I look okay?” Carlisle asked nervously, gesturing to his shirt.

 

“You’re wearing the same as always!” trilled Alice. “She’ll be pleased!”

 

Emmett examined Carlisle.

 

“Yeah, and it’s about time you got a girlfriend,” he grinned. “You need someone to buy you some more shirts!”

 

Everyone laughed. 

 

Except Rosalie.

 

“I honestly don’t know you’re making such a fuss!” she snapped acerbically. “It’s coffee at the _shitty_ diner not dinner at fucking _Eleven Madison Park!”_

 

“Back off, Rose,” said Bella to the fuming blonde. “This is important!”

 

Rosalie’s eyes _boiled._

 

“So, to recap,” Emmett said to his father. “You spent three _hours_ making out with this woman, then she put her hand in your shirt, then you took _off_ your shirt and you glittered, she was extremely impressed, and…now you’re together?”

 

“Well, I don’t know if we were…er…”

 

Carlisle cleared his throat.

 

“‘Making out’, as such,” he said stiffly. “But yes, we did…um…kiss, and then we did a lot of talking and Esme decided that she wanted to trial a relationship.”

 

“‘Trial a relationship’? Dude, _seriously?”_ laughed Emmett while his wife skewered him with her glare. “You took her to your super secret sulking place! She’s _The One,_ bro! Carlisle, you can’t let this go! Coupé diem!”

 

“It’s _carpe_ diem,” muttered Edward, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You _fucking_ idiot.” 

 

“Hey!” Emmett shouted.

 

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Rosalie snapped.

 

“Edward! Language!” Carlisle chastised him.

 

“I think that was a Freudian slip,” Bella smirked. “He wants another car.”

 

“Freudian slip?” Emmett asked interestedly. “It that lingerie?”

 

“Jesus Christ…” Edward sighed, finding no irony in Emmett’s mind.

 

“Sorry, you kissed this girl on a rock and now she’s your soul mate because she _liked the flower_ _you picked for her on he way home?”_ laughed Rosalie. “What are you? Fourteen?”

 

 _“I’M_ FOURTEEN!” screeched Alice excitedly.

 

“Well you _were,_ about a hundred years ago,” Bella told her.

 

“So- _ree,”_ Alice said huffily with a roll of her little eyes. “Just _saying…”_

 

“What fourteen year old has a car?” Edward asked of Emmett who was thinking very hard.

 

“What fourteen year old has a _Mercedes?”_ Bella added.

 

“Er, _I_ did, back in _Alberta,”_ Alice reminded them.

 

“But you’re not fourteen,” Bella stage-whispered to her.

 

 _“Yes_ I _am!”_

 

“Sorry, can we just bring this conversation back for a second?” Rosalie barked. “Carlisle, whatever you did was _extremely_ risky! What would you have done had you killed her? Chucked her in the lake?”

 

“True, you two have kinda gone public now,” Emmett said with a helpful shrug.

 

“The whole family will be implicated if this ends badly!” Rosalie cried. “And does she even _know?”_

 

“About us?” Carlisle asked.

 

“No, about _you.”_

 

There was a crisp silence.

 

“Not yet,” Carlisle admitted tautly.

 

“Well she needs to, Carlisle,” Rosalie told him flatly. “Otherwise you are lying be evasion, and if she really means that much to you, she doesn’t deserve that.”

 

Point made, Rosalie stalked away.

 

“Awww, c’mon Rose…” Emmett called.

 

“Let her go,” sighed Carlisle, preoccupied.

 

He gave his reflection another critical grimace.

 

“Now, thoughts,” he said turning back to the more supportive of his brood. “I was wondering if I should bring Esme some sort of gift?”

 

Carlisle was very new to this. Dating one’s true love _did_ create a certain kind of pressure, he had said haughtily to Emmett who had laughed so hard his perpetually dry eyes almost wept.

 

Emmett nodded his approval. 

 

“Yes,” he said, game face on. “Girls _always_ like presents, well, besides Bella…”

 

The doctor held up his arms for suggestions.

 

“Jewellery,” said Emmett without hesitation. “But no rings, or she’ll freak out.”

 

Carlisle nodded.

 

“Perhaps flowers?” suggested Edward airily. “She likes nature.”

 

Emmett shook his head sadly.

 

“Cheap!” he declared. “If you want fragrance, go for perfume, but always with something else too or it looks pointed.”

 

“Right,” murmured Carlisle, forehead furrowed. “Yes.”

 

Edward smirked.

 

“Whatever you buy her, Carlisle, she’ll love it,” he said reassuringly, having heard for himself the extent of Esme’s affection, straight from the source.

 

“You could buy her an animal,” Bella suggested hopefully. “A kitten, perhaps?”

 

“For fuck’s sake!” cried Emmett, spluttering with his booming laughter. “A _cat?_ Are you out of your _mind?_ No, that’s something… _Alice_ would like, not normal people.”

 

“Chocolates, then?” she offered on a slightly more realistic level.

 

With each suggestion, Alice was looking for Esme’s reaction in the future. That one wasn’t impressive enough.

 

“Next!” she cried.

 

“How about a flower in a pot?” Bella amended.

 

“BINGO!” screamed Alice. “She’ll love it!”

 

“See, Emmett?” said Edward smugly. “Flowers.”

 

Emmett sighed as Carlisle contemplated his next move. Where on Earth sold-

 

“Garden centre,” said Edward, plucking the answer out of Alice’s head. “But there’s a queue so you’d better leave now.”

 

“Right! Yes!” said Carlisle distractedly. “I’ll go now. Wouldn’t want to be late!”

 

He sped out of the door calling a chipper goodbye to his family. A family who, for the most part, wished him all the best in his endeavour.

 

“GET HER A PINK ONE!” Alice yelled after him helpfully.

 

Carlisle’s endeavour was waiting for him outside the diner looking extremely pretty and, clutching the famed potted plant, he bravely strode forward.

 

“Carlisle!” Esme squealed, giving him a loving, but cautious, hug.

 

“I’m fine,” he murmured, eyes a glistening molten gold. “Don’t worry.”

 

To prove his point, he gave Esme an excruciatingly enjoyable peck on the cheek.

 

She looked back at him fondly in that wide, closed-smile way that Carlisle loved. And yes, and the dimples made an appearance too.

 

“Shall we go in?” she asked.

 

“If you want, though half the town seems to be waiting for us in there,” he informed her, hearing and smelling the babble of people inside. “Including Heather Stanley, so if you were having second thoughts, that’s fine by me.”

 

“Actually…” Esme began sheepishly. “I would actually love to walk into a room on your arm. Stake my claim, as it were.”

 

Esme was almost knocked backwards when Carlisle beamed like pure sunlight and she was caught off guard by his beauty.

 

“Alright, then,” he said chirpily. “But please don’t stake me, if you could.”

 

“Would that hurt you?” Esme wondered.

 

“No, a vampire’s skin is fairly impenetrable - to something as soft as wood, most definitely,” Carlisle said. “But…a staking wouldn’t be particularly dignified for either of us, I shouldn’t think.”

 

Esme laughed.

 

“I imagine not.”

 

Misty-eyed, the pair then enjoyed the moment when they both stood awkwardly at the door, having both attempted to politely let the other go first. Carlisle won the little stand-off, leaving Esme to go ahead and choose their booth.

 

She sat down at a table by the door with a charming view of the parking lot, but she wasn’t there to look out the window. She grinned at her date while he removed his coat and placed her gift reverently on the table.

 

“For me?” she asked, pleased. 

 

He nodded. The diner stared.

 

“Carlisle, thank you,” she said genuinely, fondling one of the little flower heads. “The pink ones are my favourite.”

 

“I was advised that it would be well received,” he told her proudly.

 

“Well, somebody’s very wise,” she said while a dimple peeked out of her cheek.

 

“Yes…”

 

Carlisle looked pained for a moment.

 

“Actually Alice can see the future,” he burst.

 

“Oh,” Esme said blandly.

 

Her expression changed.

 

 _“Oh,_ that…makes a certain sense, actually,” she murmured.

 

“You _believe_ me?” Carlisle laughed.

 

“I’ve taken to believing everything,” Esme said wryly. “Just to be on the safe side.”

 

Carlisle grinned.

 

“Well it _is_ true. And it can be very useful at times like these,” he said, tapping the plant pot gently. “Though…equally it can be a real pain in the ass.”

 

“Bet she saw me coming, huh?” Esme chuckled.

 

Suddenly, Carlisle looked away.

 

His strange gesture was saved from scrutiny after the arrival of a very interested-looking waitress, elected to report back to the very interested kitchen staff.

 

“May I take your order?” she asked with barely-concealed eagerness.

 

“Yes, thank you,” said Carlisle with impeccable politeness. “Esme?”

 

“Er…I’ll have a cappuccino please.”

 

The waitress dutifully noted this down.

 

“And you, doctor?”

 

“An Americano please,” he said shooting her only a half-Watt smile, leaving her with sufficient mental faculties to write the order down. “And a chocolate brownie. We can share it.”

 

He winked at Esme.

 

“Alrighty,” the waitress said brightly, eyes darting between her two customers. “I won’t be a moment.”

 

“Thank you,” Esme said again and felt Carlisle’s hand envelop her own on the table.

 

He sighed as the woman walked away.

 

“Typical,” he said. “Apparently we’re now the talk of the town.”

 

“Yup,” Esme said, ducking her head self-consciously. “I can feel Heather’s eyes in my forehead.”

 

“We can leave, you know, at any time,” Carlisle offered. “Perk of the job, I can rush out of anywhere suddenly claiming an emergency. People don’t tend to pry. At least…most.” 

 

He raised an eyebrow having sensed the approaching threat.

 

“Oh God, here we go,” Esme whispered she watched Heather pay for her drink at the counter and turn to leave, aiming for the door beside them.

 

“Speak of the devil,” Carlisle chuckled.

 

“Speak of the devil…” Esme agreed.

 

Carlisle felt his hand being gripped a little tighter.

 

“Hi! Dr Cullen… and _Esme?”_ rang Heather’s voice as the rather equine woman appeared clutching a take out cup.

 

It had a note of rather impolite surprise.

 

“Hello, Mrs Stanley,” Carlisle said pleasantly.

 

“Hi, Heather,” Esme said, groaning internally.

 

“So…you two!” Heather exclaimed. _“…Wow.”_

 

Carlisle chuckled with expert good-humour while his foot found one of Esme’s under the table reassuringly.

 

“I’m glad you…sorted out your stuff the other day,” Heather said slyly.

 

“So am I,” Carlisle said genuinely, unwittingly pulling one of his most handsome faces. “I believe that when God gives us something precious, it would be foolish not to cherish it, don’t you think?

 

Heather was struck dumb by the intensity of the doctor’s words and gaze, intensity that Esme had become slightly more acclimatised to.

 

“Um…I guess,” she said, looking woozy.

 

The woman blushed. 

 

“So…yeah,” she said, flustered. “Enjoy your date…”

 

When the correction of terminology did not arrive, Heather stumbled off happily to tell everyone she could find about what she had discovered.

 

“Well fielded,” Esme said, face still bright red from the scrutiny.

 

“Thank you,” Carlisle said with vicious triumph. “And I would like to say that she went _beet_ red, and serve her bloody right.”

 

“I’m not much better,” Esme said, trying to cool her cheeks with her palms.

 

“Esme,” Carlisle whispered with a sweet laugh. “I _love_ your blush, and not for vampire reasons either. I was just trying to teach Heather a lesson in _empathy.”_

 

“Well, thanks,” Esme laughed, dipping her head. “But can I identify a losing battle when I see one.”

 

“Oh yeah,” Carlisle said, looking amused. “That reminds me. I was meaning to ask you. Er…the other day somebody congratulated me on the baby…?”

 

Esme looked pained.

 

“Oh _that._ I…look, last Friday was a _doozy_ of a day,” Esme said, mortified. “And Heather decided…”

 

“It’s alright,” Carlisle said with a warm laugh. “I know what was said.”

 

He leaned in close.

 

“I can hear every single whispered conversation in this room,” he whispered even quieter. 

 

“…And most of them are about us?” Esme finished.

 

“Yup,” Carlisle admitted.

 

“Oh,” Esme said, then she grinned. “Jealous women?”

 

“More jealous men, actually,” Carlisle said, suddenly stiffening a little in his seat.

 

Esme was taken aback. She hadn’t realised that there was a very prominent gay community in Forks. Maybe she had been wrong.

 

“Because of you,” Carlisle clarified, realising that she’d hadn’t quite understood.

 

Esme looked taken aback.

 

“Me?” she squeaked.

 

Carlisle looked at her a little sadly. 

 

“The fact that you’re so unassuming is endearing,” he said, stroking her hand gently. “But _please_ don’t do yourself down.”

 

“I’m not doing that,” Esme said quickly. “I just didn’t think…”

 

“Esme,” Carlisle said quietly, taking her other hand too. “You… _do_ realise what I see in you, don’t you?”

 

He looked very sad all of a sudden and he was doing that thing where he _communicated_ \- every micrometer of perfect pallid skin was oozing meaning.

 

Here, in such a public place, it felt almost indecent.

 

Esme didn’t know what to say.

 

“I…”

 

“Because _I_ don’t feel as if I’m worthy to share a table with you,” Carlisle said, not breaking eye contact. 

 

He laughed.

 

“Problem is, I don’t feel as if anyone else is either.”

 

“How?” Esme breathed, mind whirring, trying to figure out what he was trying to tell her. “No, Carlisle, really. What do you mean?”

 

“Because…”

 

He shrugged and let his hands flop down uselessly.

 

“Carlisle, _look_ at you!” Esme hissed. _“Every_ characteristic of yours is attractive, I don’t know why you wouldn’t…”

 

She let herself tail off seeing his raised eyebrow.

 

“No but _I’m_ not like _you,”_ she said, smiling despite herself.

 

 _He_ was smiling. She couldn’t help it.

 

“Objectively,” she said passionately. “And…reasonably speaking…”

 

“I’m not objective,” Carlisle said slyly. “And I don’t plan on being reasonable either.”

 

“Right,” Esme laughed. “Charmer.”

 

Carlisle chuckled as the waitress arrived with their drinks and Esme’s brownie.

 

“Thank you,” he said smoothly to the woman, who flitted back to report to the kitchen staff that the doctor’s date seemed to be going well so far.

 

“What’s she saying?” asked Esme.

 

“That we’re a cute couple,” he replied.

 

“Awwww, really?”

 

“Yes, she’s being nice,” Carlisle muttered.

 

He glanced around the room.

 

“What?” Esme wondered. “Oh, what’s everyone else saying, then?”

 

“Do you want to know?” asked Carlisle with his face screwed up with resistance.

 

“I have a feeling I’ll find out either way,” Esme told him, and she wasn’t wrong. “I’d much prefer it from you, if you know what I mean.”

 

“Alright. Well, the ladies over in the corner think that you’re to young for me,” he chuckled. “And they certainly got that right. Now the couple next to them…”

 

He huffed a laugh.

 

“They’re just amazed that the recluse doctor is out in public. And…also that he’s actually heterosexual.”

 

Esme giggled.

 

“No! _Really?”_

 

Carlisle frowned.

 

“Yes, I’ve heard that one a few times actually,” he said thoughtfully. “I believe it’s something to do with my scarfs…”

 

“You’re European,” Esme said through a mouthful of brownie. “It’s fine for European men to wear scarves.”

 

“You think?”

 

“Oh sure!”

 

“Well good,” Carlisle grinned. “And now we have one about you…”

 

“Tell me,” Esme ordered him.

 

“Apparently, you are a gold-digger, praying on the easily-led,” Carlisle said in the right tone of voice to impose absolute ridiculousness upon the comment.

 

Esme raised her eyebrows.

 

“Ouch!” she said wryly.

 

Her hands were held a little tighter.

 

“Oh and here’s a good one,” Carlisle sniggered. “The lady three tables behind you wants to know if we’ve had sex in the on-call room yet.”

 

Esme burst out laughing, almost choking on her coffee.

 

“No! _Really?_ This _town!_ My goodness!” she said weakly.

 

Carlisle was laughing too.

 

“Yes and _lovely_ Mrs Stanley is in her car talking on the phone to Mrs Weber and she says…”

 

Esme held up her hand to stop him as she tried to swallow her coffee successfully.

 

“I know what she’ll be saying,” she said darkly. “Carlisle, how do you _stand_ it? Hearing everything people say?”

 

“I’ve got used to it,” he replied, gently rubbing circles on Esme’s hand with his thumb. “Besides, it’s Edward who really has it bad. He can hear people’s _thoughts.”_

 

“Whoa!” spluttered Esme. “News flash!”

 

Carlisle nodded.

 

“So…a bit like Alice’s…thingy?”

 

“Yes,” Carlisle confirmed.

 

“So he…He knew how I felt about you?” Esme whispered. “This whole time?”

 

“‘This whole time’?” Carlisle asked, eyes twinkling. “Yes, he did. And how _I_ felt about _you.”_

 

Esme laughed.

 

“He could have saved us some time then, had he spilled the beans,” she said warmly. “Do all vampires have extra powers?”

 

Carlisle nodded.

 

“And you?” Esme wondered, fascinated.

 

“Oh, I don’t have a gift,” he said quickly. “Well, per se…”

 

Esme gave him an indulgent smile, understanding he didn’t want to tell her.

 

“Carlisle, you don’t need one,” she said softly.

 

It was a bit to public for a kiss, in both opinions, but she would have got one.

 

“Well, thanks,” said Carlisle, genuinely moved.

 

In the obvious intensity of the moment, the gawking in the diner went up a notch. 

 

“Do you…want to go somewhere else?” Carlisle asked with his characteristic sensitivity.

 

“Perhaps we ought to,” Esme conceded as the diner had indeed ground almost to a halt to watch their exchange. “I think we’re going to cause accidents if everyone is so distracted.”

 

“Alright then,” Carlisle said. “I’ll be right back.”

 

After a minute of agony as Carlisle paid the bill, and magically disposed of his un-drunk coffee (Esme had no idea how he’d done it) he led her out to his car.

 

“So,” he said pleasantly. “Where would you like to go?”

 

“Lake?” she suggested. “Like yesterday?”

 

“Could do…” he agreed. “Or…I was thinking…”

 

Carlisle gave his crinkliest smile.

 

“When I fixed your leg,” he murmured conspiratorially. “I told you I like climbing trees. That wasn’t a lie…”

 

Esme raised an eyebrow.

 

“Do you want to climb a tree, Esme?” he asked, eyes shining.

 

“I’m hardly wearing the right shoes…”

 

“You wouldn’t have to do a thing,” he told her eagerly.

 

With her giggle of approval, Carlisle drove Esme out to another spot on the outskirts of town.

 

“Here, I can carry you,” he said, bending down so that she could climb on to his back.

 

“Are you sur-”

 

He raised an eyebrow.

 

“Oh, okay,” Esme said, remembering to whom she was speaking, and that she was unlikely to be heavier than her car.

 

In a gasp of wind, Esme found her arms would around Carlisle’s neck while he ghosted through the forest at impossible speed with one of his immovable hands holding her in place.

 

Then, as quickly as it had started, the sensation disappeared.

 

“Which tree would you like to climb?” Carlisle asked enthusiastically, linking his arm through Esme’s politely as she took in her new surroundings, squinting against the sudden sunlight.

 

“We’re…the sun’s out?” Esme noted, puzzled. “Where are we?”

 

“We’re above the cloud blanket, actually,” Carlisle told her. “Sorry, I forgot to worn you that your ears would pop.”

 

As if on command, they did.

 

“Human only thing, huh?” Esme said, scrunching up her face to try and rid herself of the sensation of the pressure change.

 

“Yes,” Carlisle said from where he was shimmering under the natural light.

 

“You look so beautiful in the sun…” Esme sighed, stepping closer to wrap her arms around him.

 

Carlisle gave her his most boyish grin.

 

“Well, I thought I could do some sparkling for you.”

 

He looked around the glade.

 

“See any tree that takes your fancy?”

 

Playfully, Esme wandered around, deciding.

 

“This one,” she said suddenly. “She doesn’t mind if we do.”

 

“Right to the top?” Carlisle asked Esme.

 

“I’m not afraid of heights,” she told him. “As you know.”

 

“Well…in that case…”

 

Esme attached her arms around him.

 

“Hold on tight,” he murmured as with an enormous leap, he had scaled half the tree’s height and was throwing himself and his passenger from branch to branch.

 

“Is this alright?” he asked as they reached the top of the tree.

 

“This is magic!” Esme cried. “Higher, Carlisle, higher!” 

 

She felt her heart lurch as Carlisle placed his hands, very deliberately, either side of her waist.

 

He lifted Esme above his head and her upper body broke the canopy of pine needles, allowing her the view.

 

“Oh my God!” Esme gasped as she looked over the kingdom of mist and trees, a lake that stretched as far as _her_ eyes, at least, could see.

 

“Esme, I’m going to hold you up,” Carlisle said, caught up in her enthusiasm, feeling as though he was seeing all of this secret kingdom for the first time too. “Don’t worry I won’t let you fall. Just stay relaxed.”

 

“How can I relax here?” Esme breathed, enraptured, not scared. “This is…this is the whole world!”

 

Carlisle laughed, feeling very young and carefree all of a sudden. Esme was shrieking with delight.

 

“It’s…beautiful!” she called. “Carlisle! This is…”

 

She laughed with disbelief.

 

“This is amazing!” she said as Carlisle let her down gently onto a branch that would take the combination of their weights.

 

Esme breathed out in awe.

 

“Were you scared?” Carlisle worried.

 

Esme shook her head.

 

“No, I’m not scared with you,” she said. “Or _of_ you, for that matter.”

 

He grinned.

 

“You mean that?”

 

“Absolutely,” she said, taking his chin between her fingers.

 

“In that case…if you will permit me,” Carlisle muttered. “May I conduct the ultimate test of trust?”

 

Esme watched his sparking eyes flick downwards.

 

“We’re _jumping_ down?” she asked, shocked.

 

Carlisle pulled Esme into his lap.

 

“Yes,” he answered. “And I know, rightly so, that you find it hard to trust people. But I want to prove you can trust me, that I won’t let anything hurt you.”

 

“Can I close my eyes?” she asked. 

 

“Maybe a good idea,” Carlisle said. “But Esme, I have you.”

 

And then he tipped them both backwards.

 

To Esme, it felt like Carlisle was the balm to the nerves, the fear and the overwhelming anxiety that normally plagued her. He was like the most powerful of medication.

 

Falling felt good, more like flying while she was in his arms. In fact, she was a little disappointed when, with a surprisingly soft noise, Carlisle’s feet reached the ground. 

 

Esme barely felt the jarring of their impact.

 

“You can open your eyes” Carlisle whispered, very close. “We made it.”

 

Esme’s heart was pounding but not with fear, rather pure exhilaration.

 

Giddy, Esme leaned up on her tip toes and brought Carlisle’s face down to kiss him. He could feel her smiling against his lips.

 

With a happy sigh, the doctor pulled away a little to bury his nose in Esme’s cascades of hair.

 

He was engulfed in the chemical tang of shampoo, but, beyond that, her natural scent.

 

It was a warm smell, the sensation of the scent of warm baking bread filling him up but sweeter, with…cinnamon and nutmeg.

 

Marzipan frosting and rich, bitter cocoa. 

 

Expensive Swiss chocolate and the Nutcracker ballet.

 

And then beyond that he smelled spring.

 

White blossom against the blue sky.

 

The first meltwater. A baby’s giggle.

 

The sigh of the trees just after sundown. A new meadow baking in the late-afternoon sun.

 

And love, _pure_ love. 

 

For him.

 

In his pursuit of redemption, Carlisle had forsaken many things, human blood just one among them, but this was something he couldn’t give up. It was more precious than his own soul.

 

And she wanted him.

 

 _She_ wanted _him._

 

Preposterous.

 

Absurd.

 

But, as she gazed up at him his fears were scattered to the wind. 

 

What they had between them was undeniable true.

 

His Esme.

 

Suddenly the doctor was moved to speech.

 

“Will…” Carlisle began. “Esme, Will…Would you…”

 

To his horror, the Elephant Boy couldn’t get the words out.

 

Esme cupped the vampire’s marble cheek and pressed another sweet kiss to his lips.

 

She smiled like an angel, and Carlisle wondered if she had just had the same revelation as himself.

 

“Of _course_ I’ll be your girlfriend, Carlisle,” she whispered. 

 

 


	30. You And Cullen, Huh?

On Monday morning, the pencil skirt and the lilac blouse finally made an appearance.

 

Unfortunately, it was raining heavily and the heels had to be sacrificed for a pair of more waterproof flats but, despite the awful weather, Esme skipped towards the hospital doors.

 

“Hey! Chris!” Esme called.

 

While beaming at how beautiful the downpour was, Esme had recognised the figure barrelling through the deluge, a child’s coat held over his head. 

 

“I have an umbrella! Here!”

 

The nurse dashed over looking like a golden retriever that had dived into a river.

 

“Thanks, Esme!” he laughed, wiping water out of his eyes.

 

“Um, you might have to…” Esme said, awkwardly passing her flask of coffee to the other hand as she offered the handle of the wide umbrella to the taller of the two so he could fit underneath.

 

“Oh, yeah, sure…” 

 

“I’m just too small, sometimes,” Esme tutted playfully. “That’s better!”

 

Chris nodded as he tried to match the pace of Esme’s shorter legs.

 

“So, how’s things?” she asked. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in a while.”

 

“Good…I’m good…” Chris said thoughtfully. “How’s the ankle?”

 

“Good as new,” Esme beamed as he casually examined the injury. “Must have had a good nurse!”

 

“Yeah…” Chris agreed grinning. “I mean, _you_ must have been a good _patient.”_

 

Esme grinned back.

 

“So how was your weekend?”

 

“Oh, I was here covering for Samantha,” Chris told her.

 

“Aw, that was kind of you, Chris,” Esme said. “You didn’t miss any sun, though!”

 

“No, seeming not!” he laughed.

 

He hadn’t missed any gossip either.

 

“So…ah…you and Cullen, huh?” Chris said in a more serious tone as they finally got under the hospital’s roof.

 

He turned.

 

“I…don’t like it,” he admitted. “He…

 

Chris searched for the right words to describe the crawling feeling up his spine he often got seeing the two of them together at work. 

 

“He looks at you like you’re something to _eat.”_

 

Esme choked on her coffee.

 

“What?” she spluttered.

 

“I…” 

 

Chris shrugged apologetically, but didn’t say sorry for overstepping the line. It was true.

 

And, in the man’s face, Esme saw no teasing or jealousy, rather an earnest anxiety to do the right thing.

 

“Chris, thank for your concern,” Esme laughed breathily. “But…”

 

“No, yeah, I get it…totally not my place…” he said, flushing. “I just…yeah…”

 

He looked embarrassed and Esme felt sorry for him,

 

“Well, I’ll see you…er…at lunch…” he grappled. “If you’re…yeah. Nice to talk to you.”

 

“You too, Chris,” Esme said as warmly as she could so he might feel forgiven.

 

She frowned a little before greeting a very interested Josie with a smile and then squelching down the corridor, receiving a few _looks_ from the other staff members.

 

However, all else was forgotten when the door to her office was flung open a moment before she got there and she caught sight of her angel.

 

“Good morning, Ms Swan,” Carlisle grinned, head sideways around the doorframe.

 

“Dr Cullen,” Esme nodded back, feeling a smile creep across her face and resisting the urge to run towards him.

 

The doctor showed no such restraint and the minute Esme was in the office and out of eye-shot of any other people, he pulled her into a hug, soaking his shirt in the process, and peppered her face with kisses.

 

Esme giggled and squirmed.

 

“My my, it _is_ a good morning! Hello!” she laughed breathlessly.

 

“Missed you,” Carlisle murmured from his new favourite hiding place in her hair.

 

When Esme was finally released with another kiss for good measure, she saw that on her desk was another gift.

 

Turning back to Carlisle, Esme was offered only a small smile in explanation for the cupcake that had been left on her desk, iced with tiny pink hearts.

 

“Thank you,” Esme said. “I’ll have that with lunch.”

 

“Oh, no. That’s the ‘morning’ one. There’s another one for lunch and another for three o’clock coffee. I’m feeding the human, you see,” Carlisle smirked. “At popular request. They baked about fifty of these things - about half of which are currently decorating the floor, walls and ceiling of my kitchen.”

 

Esme laughed.

 

“Oh dear! Well tell…”

 

She narrowed her eyes in thought.

 

“Bella…or…Alice…?”

 

“Both,” he said.

 

“Tell them thanks,” Esme smiled, shrugging off her wet coat and hanging it, and her bag, behind the door.

 

The doctor let out a breath.

 

“They expect me to work in this environment?” Carlisle said incredulously, grinning at Esme.

 

“I thought my blood didn’t bother you so much when you’d fed a lot,” she said, flicking her eyes to his singing gold ones.

 

“I…wasn’t referring to your blood…” Carlisle said, trawling a raised eyebrow up and down her ensemble of the day.

 

“Oh, stop it, you,” Esme giggled, swatting his elbow.

 

As she did so, the downpour outside picked up notably. Now it was roaring down.

 

“Can anyone you know do anything about the weather?” Esme asked with a sigh.

 

“Er…well we could have a lightning storm too if you felt the urge,” Carlisle offered. “I could make some calls.”

 

“Hmm, maybe not today,” Esme said with her nose wrinkled, thinking of the state the roads would be in by the time she would be driving home.

 

Carlisle squinted at the rain.

 

“Mush be miserable for those who require vitamin D…” he mused.

 

“Yes,” Esme laughed, checking everything at her desk was exactly where it should be before she logged on to the computer. “Those peasants…”

 

Struck by a thought, she turned back to the doctor.

 

“Actually I like the rain,” she said softly. “I get to see you.”

 

He grinned.

 

“And I get to see you in a damp shirt,” he whispered with a wink.

 

“Wash your mouth out with _soap,_ Carlisle Cullen,” Esme scolded him. “It’s a _blouse,_ technically. I thought gay men were supposed to know about clothes.”

 

She shot the scarf hanging over the back of his chair a very suspect look.

 

Carlisle huffed in disbelief.

 

“Touché,” he chuckled before his face fell a little. “And…and I was just being...I hope I didn’t speak out of turn…”

 

“I know,” Esme reassured him. “And you didn’t. I know you didn’t mean it maliciously or callously and I actually don’t mind that kind of thing from you. It’s more _James Bond_ than seedy.” 

 

“Good, I was worried,” he said.

 

His face cracked into a smile.

 

“And you’ll _have_ to meet Emmett, you know,” he chortled. “I have a feeling you’ll get on wonderfully.”

 

“Really?” Esme said. “Well, I’d love to meet him, after all I’ve heard…”

 

She cast a fond eye over Carlisle who had started juggling a pencil sharpener between his hands absently which she found strangely sweet, considering his normal immobility. 

 

“And scarves are the best,” she reassured him. _“I_ think so anyway.”

 

Carlisle gasped and crossed his hands over his stone heart, pretending to swoon.

 

 _“God,”_ he grinned. “A woman after my own heart…”

 

And that was the tone for the next few days which passed, for Carlisle, in perfect happy clarity, and for Esme a blissful blur. 

 

The cake was not the first gift, as Carlisle would often bring her things he thought she’d be interested in like fossils he had found and tiny wildflowers that he had been able to spot.

 

And between Carlisle’s ward rounds and surgery (and the occasional lulls in which they remembered they were at the hospital to work) they talked - talked about everything, ranging from the places that Carlisle had been during his long life to the squirrels that Esme had rescued as a child. However, it was good that Esme liked to listen as the main point of conversation was the vampire world and what it meant to be one.

 

“No soul?” asked Esme, confused. “Why…?”

 

Carlisle sighed heavily.

 

“I personally don’t believe it, though Edward does,” he told her, frowning. “However Bella doesn’t believe in the concept of a soul at _all._ Not ‘scientifically viable’, apparently.”

 

“What about Alice and Jasper?” Esme asked, nibbling a little more of her sandwich.

 

“Alice doesn’t really think about things like that,” Carlisle said. “And Jasper…I think I’ve talked him round.”

 

Carlisle pulled his incredibly sad face for a second.

 

 _“God_ I hope so.”

 

Esme knew the doctor was thinking of the bodies in the woods, bodies Carlisle had admitting to tearing apart to help cover his sons’ tracks.

 

“The others?” Esme wondered.

 

“Rosalie repeatedly insists she doesn’t care,” Carlisle told her. “Which occasionally I believe, and upon hearing the word ‘soul’, Emmett thinks of sneakers, which becomes ‘baseball’ which becomes ‘I’m bored’ which becomes ‘let’s break something valuable in the house’, so we have to be careful about throwing spiritual debate around.”

 

Esme chuckled.

 

“I wasn’t joking!” Carlisle cried. “I came home once to find him playing golf using my Faberge egg!”

 

“You have a Faberge egg?” Esme asked disbelievingly.

 

“Bloody used to!” Carlisle spluttered. “It’s somewhat scrambled now…”

 

He frowned.

 

“Well, don’t worry, Carlisle,” Esme told him brightly. “When I get my next pay check, I’ll buy you a new one, how does that sound?”

 

“Will you really?” Carlisle breathed.

 

“Of course,” Esme told him.

 

“Oh you _angel,_ Esme…” Carlisle chuckled, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

 

“Or maybe it can be a birthday present,” she said, returning to her tuna. “When’s your birthday?”

 

“February second,” he answered. “…Well, I’m pretty sure, anyway. Thereabouts. What about you?”

 

“August fourth…”

 

Esme narrowed her eyes suspiciously seeing Carlisle’s guilty look.

 

“Which you knew, didn’t you?”

 

“Er…yes,” the doctor said sheepishly. _“Alice_ told me that, actually, after I found two confetti cannons hidden in the garage.”

 

“What?” Esme said. “Do those things actually _exist?”_

 

“Yup,” Carlisle confirmed. “She's…planning a little… _soirée_ for you…”

 

“Really?” Esme breathed. “Oh sweet! She’s planning it all herself?”

 

“Yes,” Carlisle said, rubbing his hands together awkwardly. “She…um…she’s dug up some funds…”

 

“Oh _bless…”_

 

“Mmm, yes,” he frowned. “But I think we’ll have to put a stop to it. Her parties get out of hand. Quickly.”

 

“Plus I’m turning thirty-one,” Esme conceded, almost apologetically. “So it’s hardly a novel birthday.”

 

“In the Cullen family, any birthday is novel,” Carlisle smiled, jostling her playfully.

 

Then a thoughtful look took over his face.

 

“Perhaps…perhaps you could talk to Alice?” he posed. “I mean, she’s been bouncing off the walls about you. You could…come over if you wanted? I know we talked about meeting Emmett the other day.”

 

“Come…to your house?” Esme asked.

 

“…As long as you don’t mind…” Carlisle said quickly. “And don’t worry if that’s the case. A few of us aren’t exactly used to the idea that we're together. I suppose it came as a bit of a shock to some.”

 

“I hope you don’t mean yourself, Carlisle!” Esme teased, hiding her sudden nervousness at Carlisle’s very tactful reminder that she may not be entirely welcome yet.

 

“Especially me!” he laughed. “I’m still in shock!”

 

Esme laughed too, but haltingly.

 

“Look,” Carlisle said quietly. “Don’t worry. They’re all eager to see you again.”

 

 _And planning our wedding,_ he thought fitfully.

 

Esme smiled shyly and shuffled a few papers around in an attempt to disguise her blush at the idea that she might be liked. Carlisle was enchanted.

 

“So…Saturday afternoon or evening-ish, then?” he asked, and Esme agreed which had her spending Saturday with clothes sprawled out over her bed trying to choose an outfit.

 

“Hey, Esme?” Charlie said as he saw his sister deliberating over a set of shoes in the hallway. “You going out?”

 

“Uh huh,” said Esme, looking intently with a furrowed brow at a pair of brown suedes.

 

“With the girls from work?” he asked, though judging by what Billy had said on the phone, he had a pretty good idea that it would be a ‘no’.

 

“Er…no,” Esme replied distractedly. “I’m going to Carlisle’s place. He’s going to introduce me to his kids, well, formally. There’s one I haven’t met.”

 

“Cullen,” said Charlie flatly. 

 

His sister nodded, still flapping over her outfit.

 

The chief had other concerns.

 

“Esme, I don’t like that,” he said bluntly.

 

“Oh, so you like the green ones instead?” she asked with exaggerated innocence. 

 

She knew what Charlie was talking about, and it wasn’t shoes.

 

“Don’t mess with me!” the chief said. “We need to have a talk about this.”

 

“It’s actually none of your business, Charlie!” Esme said hotly, surprising herself with her tone. “I can date who I like.”

 

“So you are _dating,_ then?”

 

“Yes!” said Esme indignantly. “And I don’t know what the problem is! Carlisle is the perfect gentleman!”

 

“Really?” Charlie huffed, folding his arms. “Well, that’s not what Billy Black told me earlier.”

 

“And what does the ever-reliable Billy Black know about my boyfriend that I don’t?” challenged Esme.

 

Charlie raised an eyebrow.

 

“I thought you and Billy were friends?” he asked, a little hurt on Billy’s behalf.

 

“We are!” Esme insisted. “But Carlisle and I are _really_ good friends and I don't want to hear bad things about him!”

 

“No, you never _do_ wanna hear it, do you?” Charlie mumbled under his breath.

 

“Sorry, _what_ was that?” Esme asked, narrowing her eyes.

 

Charlie sighed. He’d gone for a very low blow.

 

“Nothing, Esme,” he mumbled. “Just…”

 

He looked pained for a moment before disappearing and returning with a small can.

 

“What… _pepper spray?”_ Esme laughed incredulously as he held it out to her.

 

“Please, Esme…” Charlie said, a wince in his voice. “For my piece of mind.”

 

Esme pursed her lips, then handed it back.

 

“Charlie, I can’t. Really,” Esme said sternly. “Thank you but I don’t think…”

 

She looked at him meaningfully while Charlie writhed in frustration.

 

He got a bad vibe from Dr Cullen and, a few minutes later when the doorbell rang and the doctor was standing in his home, the feeling intensified.

 

Six troubled teens, and not a peep from any of them as far as law enforcement was concerned. This so-called Dr Cullen must be a bit of a secret _disciplinarian._ And Charlie would be damned if he let him turn that side on his sister. She’d been through enough as it was. He’d push her over the edge.

 

“Charlie!” the doctor said charmingly, detecting the man’s anger as Esme clasped his marble hand.

 

“Doctor,” mumbled Charlie, wincing as he reluctantly accepted the doctor’s icy handshake. 

 

He dropped it slightly prematurely and turned to the doctor with aggression in his stance.

 

“Wow, you know what they say," Charlie commented wryly. "Cold hand, cold heart.”

 

To his annoyance, Cullen just gave a velvet chuckle.

 

“Well, in my profession a cold heart is never a good sign,” he said smoothly then looked down adoringly at Esme who giggled.

 

Charlie gave a huff of sarcastic laughter. Fuck this smarmy asshole.

 

“So, is Esme staying for dinner?” Charlie asked, wanting to know what exactly what the plan was for this ‘date’.

 

“Yes. I’ve prepared some food,” Carlisle added for Esme's benefit.

 

“Hmm,” said Charlie. “Well, in that case, Esme, I hope you enjoy rare appendix.”

 

 _“Charlie!”_ hissed Esme, aghast, as she placed her hands protectively on Carlisle’s chest. “For goodness’ sake! I’m sorry, Carlisle.”

 

The doctor chuckled good-naturedly.

 

“I’m afraid not,” he said to Esme's brother. “My family are all vegetarians.”

 

Carlisle swooped another look with Esme and, to Charlie’s greater unhappiness, they both laughed again.

 

“Alright, I get it,” Charlie said defeatedly. “Have a great time, Esme, and I’ll see you later.”

 

He looked at Cullen sternly.

 

She. Is. Coming. Back. Understand… _doctor?_

 

Carlisle nodded respectfully.

 

“I’ll see you soon, Charlie,” he said, holding the passenger door of the Mercedes open for Esme.

 

The chief’s scowl followed the black car down the street.

 

“I hope I’m not causing you any bother,” said Carlisle, glancing at Esme, having to then practically _tear_ his gaze back to the road.

 

She shook her head.

 

“Nah…just Charlie being a concerned elder brother.”

 

“He is _right,_ you know, which is the difficult thing," Carlisle muttered, pained. "He knows something’s different about me, I can tell. He’s not just being protective in a general sense.”

 

“Maybe so," Esme agreed. "But Carlisle, _I_ trust you.”

 

“Thank you, Esme,” he whispered.

 

He took her hand and kissed it, then, before long, they had driven out of town and Carlisle really hit the gas.

 

“Wow, you really _do_ live out of town…” Esme remarked as the trees continued to blur past them.

 

“Conveniently so,” Carlisle chuckled. “But we’re nearly there.”

 

‘Nearly there’ happened to be a lot further than Esme thought, as after Carlisle had turned into the driveway, the little road wove on and on.

 

“What happens if we meet another car?” Esme asked, seeing no turning places.

 

“Then you’ll hear some rather rude words and my poor car gets scratched squeezing past the other car, halfway into the bushes,” Carlisle answered her, straight-faced.

 

Esme snorted with laugher.

 

“Or you could just pick it up,” she suggested.

 

“I had not thought of that…” Carlisle muttered.

 

He laughed.

 

“That’s actually a brilliant idea,” he continued, but rather tersely, because by this point the house was finally coming into view.

 

He looked _extremely_ like a statue. 

 

“Here we go,” he muttered as he pulled up.

 

On Esme’s face was only shock.

 

“Oh. My. _God.”_ she breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recently, an original Faberge egg was valued at up to $33 million dollars.
> 
> Just saying…


	31. The Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's just for fun.
> 
> Oh, and nothing anyone says here is meant to offend...
> 
> Plus the watermelon thing is real. 
> 
> Yeah, I know...

“Is everyone okay?” Esme gasped, wresting with her seat belt. “Has there been a burglary?”

 

The house stood apparently deserted with the door hanging off its hinges. The panes of some of the front windows were smashed allowing the expensive silk curtains to billow outside.

 

Carlisle gave a noise of frustration and then a slightly manic laugh.

 

“Relax,” he reassured his passenger who was halfway to calling 911. “This is fine. They just…”

 

He sighed.

 

“They promised me they’d tidy up,” he said wearily. “Or put the door back on properly, at least…”

 

“Oh…okay…” Esme said, relaxing only a little.

 

“We’re vampires,” Carlisle shrugged, giving his awkward apology. “It’s…yeah. Perhaps I’m not home as much as I should be.”

 

“It is a beautiful house, though…” Esme offered kindly as he door opened with a gust of wind and Carlisle was helping her out of the car.

 

“Mmm, yes,” he laughed. “Just a lick of paint and some windows and we’re in business.”

 

“Yeah…” Esme chuckled, shooting the facade of the house a very thoughtful look.

 

“Well, since you’re interested in interior design and architecture, this should be right up your street,” Carlisle said. “Ignoring the general chaos, that is.”

 

“How did you know that?” Esme asked him.

 

“Er…you…told me,” Carlisle said, panic gripping him as he realised it had been the other Esme who had done so, seated in her little farmhouse. “Er…a while ago.”

 

“Oh, maybe I did,” Esme said absently, thankfully turning her attention to the main attraction which was growing larger and scruffier with every step.

 

The Cullen home.

 

At the remainder of the door, Carlisle paused.

 

“I’ll…just go in first, if that’s alright,” he said with trepidation. “God only knows…”

 

He took in a breath.

 

“Oh, and Esme… this might be a bit of a sensory overload,” he said. “So if anything…”

 

Carlisle gave her a very meaningful look.

 

 _“…Bothers_ you, we can leave, no problem.”

 

“Sure,” Esme said, but peeking around him, curiosity overcoming fear of chaos.

 

As the pair stepped inside, the enormous gap for a grand staircase (which was missing like a front-tooth) was the first thing Esme noticed.

 

Above it, there was a chandelier that looked like the loser of a paint-ball battle while, higher still, the ceiling was hung with cobwebs so thick they looked like mosquito nets.

 

The house seemed to belong in the deep south rather than rainy Forks with its colonial feel and European influence.

 

It was old. It was grand. 

 

...And the vampires had _trashed_ the place.

 

Despite the beautiful exterior, everything in sight was in some way broken when Esme looked closely.

 

But still…

 

“Carlisle,” Esme gasped, running her hand over a nearby curtain. “This is _beautiful.”_

 

“I’m glad you…ah…glad you think so,” Carlisle said, relief flooding though him at her positive response. “And it’s not giving you any problems.”

 

“I think I’ve come out the other side of the tunnel,” Esme laughed. “This is so much like a dream I think I’m okay. It’s like Cinderella…”

 

“We even have a ballroom,” Carlisle continued with a chuckle, taking Esme’s hand again. “But Alice turned it into a rollerskating rink so that’s spoken for I’m afraid. We’ve…”

 

Carlisle looked despondently around at their surroundings.

 

“Made ourselves comfortable here, at any rate…”

 

Esme was shaking her head in wonder.

 

“Wow…” she breathed, spinning on the spot as she looked straight upwards at the cracking mosaic ceiling.

 

The doctor followed her gaze and, as though with new eyes, found the object of her fascination.

 

And yes, he decided, maybe he _did_ live in quite a nice place after all. Even with all his-

 

“Hang on,” Carlisle said, hearing the distinctive pattering of tiny feet. “Here’s-”

 

_“ESME SWAN!”_

 

Appearing from one of the upstairs corridors, a little spiky-haired missile locked-on target and launched itself from the top of the gaping chasm that should have been the stairs.

 

Upon impact, Esme staggered backwards and would have fallen if Carlisle hadn’t darted to catch her.

 

“ALICE!” Carlisle roared. “She’s _human!_ You could have really hurt her!”

 

“But I didn’t!” said the creature, which had blissfully wrapped it’s arms around Esme’s middle.

 

Though a little stunned, Esme’s face moulded into an expression Carlisle had never seen before as she hugged the child back. He noticed a flash of something too personal for him to understand in Esme’s eyes and so he turned away.

 

“Hello Pinkie Pie!” Esme cooed, tickling Alice under the chin. 

 

“Hello, Esme,” Alice breathed luxuriously, snuggling into the human’s jacket.

 

“I hear you’ve been planning a party…” Esme continued in honeyed tones.

 

“Why, yes!” the miniature girl said, stepping back.

 

From nowhere, she produced a garish pink envelope, twice the size of her own face.

 

“Hep hem,” Alice said importantly, presenting the item like a courtier to a queen. “For you, Ms Swan.”

 

“Wow, Alice! Look at- Oh!”

 

A fountain of glitter poured out of the envelope as Esme opened it, spewing over the cracked marble below her feet.

 

“Read it, read it!” Alice squealed.

 

 _Dear Ms Swan,_ began the text formally in a shade of neon-green gel pen that made Esme’s eyes swim.

 

_We are delighted to invite you to your thirty-first birthday party which will be held here two Sundays from now at whenever you arrive._

 

_There will be a party, a makeover and then a sleepover and a feast!_

 

_Also it will be raining so please don’t do those curls you were going to because they’ll drop right out again!_

 

_Love from Alice! (And Jasper, (but he’s not here because he killed all those people!) and Bella and Edward and Emmett (lots) and Rosalie (but she would never say), and most of all Carlisle!)_

 

_(And P.S. you will come regardless, so this was all to annoy Carlisle, really. He doesn’t like things on the floor, especially glitter, also bits of china!)_

 

Esme peered over the top of the invite to lay eyes on the most heartbreakingly hopeful face she had ever seen.

 

She turned to Carlisle who looked defeated.

 

“Carlisle…” Esme began, very aware of Alice who was trembling with the excitement of the inevitable. “We…might have to have the party…”

 

The doctor sighed.

 

“Alright then, Alice,” he said, looking tired. “You win.”

 

The tiny vampire’s face was transfigured into one of boundless joy.

 

“Emmett!” she screeched as Esme quietly slipped the precious invite into her bag. “You owe me a dollar!”

 

Esme followed Alice’s gaze and jumped, seeing the rest of the family amassed at the other one of the room though she hadn’t heard them come in.

 

Edward grinned.

 

“You’ll get used to it…” he said to Esme before turning to his brother. “I told you never to bet against her…”

 

“That was kind, Esme,” Bella said.

 

Emmett laughed.

 

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Esme that little pixie has got you by the _balls.”_

 

“Emmett!” Carlisle bristled. “That is _no_ way to speak to a guest! And _why_ have you not cleaned up?”

 

“I thought Esme should have an honest picture of the man she’s dating,” said a cold voice as Rosalie slinked into the room. “You know…all the information.”

 

She turned to Esme.

 

“See, unbeknownst to me,” she began in an ashen voice. “Once upon a time, the beautiful suitor I was set to marry, was in fact an _animal_ who got drunk with his friends and _raped_ me.”

 

The room was silent even for one full of vampires.

 

“I know you can sympathise,” Rosalie said with an intensity that felt a little rude under the scrutiny of an audience. “And I would _hate_ for such a misunderstanding to bring harm this time, too.”

 

“Get out,” Carlisle snapped to the young woman, pointing towards the door. “Now. And you’ll come back tomorrow.”

 

“I don’t know,” Rosalie said distantly, over her cold shoulder, as she began to sweep her way from the room. “Maybe I won’t…”

 

“Wait! Rosalie!” Esme cried after the vampire had vanished.

 

She turned to Carlisle who was staring stony-faced after his daughter.

 

“That poor girl!” she exclaimed. _“Please_ bring her back, Carlisle!”

 

“I didn’t want her to upset you,” Carlisle said, cupping Esme’s cheek, and peering into her eyes worriedly, as if to see physical injury in them.

 

“I’m upset _now!”_ Esme hissed. “Bring her back!”

 

Edward sighed and silently took his leave, massaging his temples.

 

“Rosalie! Come back, sweetie!” Esme called out of the door.

 

Emmett shook his head and sauntered forward.

 

“Lost her at 'sweetie', I’m afraid, Esme,” he said, at last taking the opportunity to give ‘Carlisle’s new missus’ a fond hug.

 

He laughed dreamily.

 

“I called her that one time…”

 

Esme looked distressed.

 

“My God, is it _true?”_ she hissed to the enormous man.

 

“Yes,” said Emmett, grinding his teeth. “And I am _just_ as pissed off as you are. That’s why Rose killed those guys who were after you.”

 

“Wait!” she breathed, turning to Carlisle who looked as if he didn’t quite know what he ought to be doing. _“She…”_

 

Esme’s eyes filled with tears.

 

“Oh, _Rose…”_

 

Emmett shrugged.

 

“She doesn’t want pity, though,” he told his petite new friend. “Just understanding, which you have-”

 

_“Emmett.”_

 

The giant paused to hold his hands up placatingly to Carlisle.

 

“So it’s a little weird for her to have you around,” he finished.

 

“But we all understand the power of the mate bond,” said Bella. “And so we will treat you with all the love and respect we have for Carlisle. You are a part of him now. And a part of us.”

 

So much acceptance. 

 

Esme could hardly believe it and, to her embarrassment, she felt more tears in her eyes.

 

“Thank you all,” she said thickly. “This means so much!”

 

 _After everything,_ thought Edward bitterly from upstairs, seeing flashes of Esme’s life where she hadn’t been so lucky.

 

“Before I hear any more of this,” Carlisle said, placing a heartfelt kiss on Esme’s temple while he shook with secret rage. “I’ll just step out and hunt, if we’re going to be together for the whole evening.”

 

Edward, who chose that moment to eerily reappear, shared a meaningful look with Alice who grinned slyly.

 

“What was that look for?” Carlisle asked with narrowed eyes.

 

“Just…make sure and feed a lot…” Edward said, with a suggestiveness lost on all but the prophetic and Emmett, whose eyebrows flew up gleefully into his curls.

 

“Yeah…a _lot…”_ Alice giggled waggling _her_ little eyebrows.

 

“O…kay, then?” Carlisle said warily. “I’ll see you very soon.” 

 

He pecked Esme jauntily on the lips.

 

“All of you be _careful,_ and Bella is in charge until I get back,” he declared before vanishing through the front door with a rush of wind.

 

There were five seconds of silence as all vampires listened very hard and then-

 

“Woo! He’s gone!” yelled Emmett, high-fifing his brother, who lifted his hands to repair his hair as soon as the motion had taken place. “TV on, guys! It’s ER time! I’ll text Rose to come back…”

 

“ER?” Esme asked Emmett whom she had decided she really liked.

 

“Esme, it is _so_ difficult to watch a medical drama when he’s in the room,” Emmett said with a sigh, politely carrying the human into the living room.

 

“Seriously?” Esme giggled.

 

“Erh,” the giant grunted in an unflattering mimicry of Carlisle’s Neolithic counterpart. “That’s fuckin’ _shit._ The IV would be attached _a fifth of an inch to the left._ I can’t believe people actually watch this.”

 

He rolled his eyes.

 

Esme giggled, then looked around in awe as she noted her new surroundings in the…

 

What room could you call it?

 

“What is this place?” Esme asked, noticing immediately the centrepiece which really shouldn’t have been there.

 

“Our drive-in!” Alice told her excitedly.

 

What must have previously been the sofas in the sitting room had been _decimated_ and, in the centre of the space, was parked a ridiculous canary-yellow car.

 

Facing that was a huge screen and a projector.

 

“That’s my car!” Alice said excitedly, flitting forwards to give the Porsche a hug.

 

“And that’s my tarp,” Bella said dryly, motioning to the plastic sheeting that had been taped over the hole that had been hewn from the house’s exterior wall to get the car in.

 

“Not a bad job,” Esme told the girl kindly.

 

“Thanks, I-”

 

“And we got you _snacks,_ Esme! Look!” Alice interrupted at a much higher pitch and volume.

 

She vanished for a small slither of time and reemerged from the vampire-realm laden with a collection of unspeakably unhealthy food.

 

Grabbing Esme too, she hopped onto the hood.

 

“Mmmmm,” Alice said indulgently, throwing a fistful of toffee popcorn over her shoulder without irony. “Delicious!”

 

She thrust the bucket in the human’s face.

 

“Esmeeatsome!” she demanded shrilly as Emmett found the channel he was after and threw all of his enormous bulk onto the floor.

 

As he did, the temperature of the room dropped a little as Rosalie entered, holding a magazine carelessly between her long fingers.

 

“What have you got there, Rosalie?” Esme asked pleasantly knowing better to continue their earlier conversation where it left off.

 

“A car magazine," answered the blonde, sounding thoroughly disinterested. "I fix up cars.”

 

“Wow, impressive,” Esme smiled encouragingly.

 

“That’s the point,” Rosalie said plainly. “Oh, and Alice, you fucked your exhaust with all that dust you know, I’ll have to replace it.”

 

“Yes…yes…” the pixie said absently, piling more and more fairly inedible candy into Esme’s lap.

 

As she did, there was a gust of breeze and before Esme knew it, Carlisle was between her candy-laden lap and the yellow car bonnet where she and Alice were perched.

 

“Hello, love,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around his waist.

 

“Hello to you too," Esme murmured fondly. "And you caught us.”

 

“Hmmm, ER,” Carlisle said, catching sight of Rosalie, sprawled next to Emmett on the floor.

 

Esme could sense Carlisle squirm internally before he spoke.

 

“And, Rosalie, I was too harsh,” he said stiffly. “I apologise.”

 

No response came, but this was taken as a good thing, so they watched a little longer with Esme nibbling bits of popcorn Carlisle held for her in his palm. 

 

However, at intervals, Carlisle would sigh theatrically, or ostentatiously look away from the screen.

 

Edward caught Esme’s eye and winked.

 

“You know, that really is _appallingly_ inaccurate,” the doctor said idly when he could control himself no longer.

 

Esme grinned into her lap.

 

“What?” he asked as he heard the stifled chuckles from around the room. “Am I missing something?”

 

“We warned Esme you’d get triggered,” Emmett laughed.

 

“I’m sorry!” Carlisle said indignantly. _“Any_ qualified doctor would know-”

 

“But they’re _not_ qualified doctors, Carlisle,” said Edward, almost pityingly, as if his father were particularly slow. “They are actors. _This isn’t real.”_

 

“Well, I think television should be educational,” Carlisle said sniffily.

 

“It is!” Emmett told him excitedly. “I learnt today there is, I shit you not, a woman in California who can crush a watermelon against the table just with one of her tits! And she’s full-human!”

 

“Wow, and here I thought _mind-reading_ was impressive,” Edward said in his typical tone, rolling his eyes.

 

“With just the one?” Bella asked with interest.

 

“Hmmmm,” Carlisle said disapprovingly. “When does school start, again?”

 

As soon as he had spoken, a particularly bloodied casualty was wheeled onto the screen and Carlisle heard Esme’s heart hammer with anxiety.

 

“Esme, would you fetch me my bag, please?” he asked kindly, giving her an excuse to leave the room. “It’s just out in the hall.”

 

Emmett snapped his fingers.

 

“Moneypenny, bring me my bag!” he brayed. “Chop chop, woman!”

 

Carlisle sighed as Esme settled back in his lap. He put the bag down on the bonnet.

 

“Mind the paintwork!” cried Alice and Rosalie in unison.

 

“Thank you, darling,” he whispered to Esme, bringing his arms around her waist. “We’re back on this now, are we, Emmett?”

 

Emmett gave an alarming kind of vowel slur.

 

“By gove!” he exclaimed in the English accent he used to make fun of his father. “I think we might be!”

 

He nudged Edward.

 

“Spot of rugger later, eh, old boy?”

 

“Emmett, by nice to your father,” Esme laughed. “Although that is very good.”

 

“Yes, I’ve often suggested he might use his skills to learn an _actual language,”_ Carlisle murmured to her. “But he insists that’s a waste of his time and he’d rather just make fun-”

 

“Oh my God!” Emmett laughed, flicking through the channels. _“Botched_ is on! Esme, hold Carlisle down! Maybe gag him too. Fuck _me_ I love catchup!”

 

“Language…” Carlisle sighed half-heartedly as he snuggled Esme a little tighter against himself.

 

“What’s that about?” Esme asked curiously.

 

“About cosmetic surgeries that have gone wrong, or the patient has developed complications some years after the event," Carlisle told her, phasing slightly into medical-speech. "Another group of cosmetic surgeons try to fix the mistakes by operating again. Personally I-” 

 

“Here we go…” Emmett said eagerly, grinning at Esme who couldn’t help but smile back, even at Carlisle’s expense.

 

“I’m just _saying,”_ Carlisle continued impatiently. “In all those Renaissance paintings - just before my era, by the way - women weren’t expected to look anything like this.”

 

He gestured towards the projector screen with distaste where the woman was admiring her new breast augmentation.

 

“Actually, upstairs I have a painting by a gentleman I knew when I was living in Italy, and-”

 

“Uh oh, Carlisle’s talking about his lesbian porn again,” Emmett tutted loudly. “That’s a dollar in the lesbian porn jar!”

 

“The _what?”_ Carlisle spluttered while in his arms Esme finally succumbed to the incurable giggles. “And what do you mean?”

 

“In the painting, two naked tits are touching,” Emmett explained slowly, as if Carlisle were an inquisitive but fairly unintelligent child.

 

“I think that’s just the perspective of the figures,” Carlisle said with a furrowed brow.

 

“Yeah, the _naked_ figures,” Rosalie teased him, catching Emmett’s eye.

 

“He’s filthy, this one,” Emmett told Esme piously, motioning casually to his father.

 

The human’s giggles became almost suffocating.

 

“What do you have against same-sex partnership?” Bella challenged her enormous brother.

 

“Nothing!” Emmett spluttered. “It’s Eddie who has the issue! I have no problem with it! Two women together is hot!”

 

“Plus it’s empowering,” Rosalie added, flipping carelessly through her magazine.

 

“Yeah, _empowering,”_ Emmett repeated, nodding in fierce agreement with his wife.

 

“I don’t have an issue,” Edward muttered.

 

“Except when it comes to Tanya and Irina?” Rosalie asked slyly, lifting her eyes to study the face that, had it been human, would have been beet red.

 

“It’s not what they do,” Edward sighed, fidgeting awkwardly. “Rather how they don’t _stop_ when you walk in on them! They just say ‘hello’ then carry on!”

 

“And why _ever_ would you, of all people,” Rosalie asked. “‘Walk in on them’ when you know _exactly_ what they’re doing?”

 

“Hang on…” the doctor frowned as he felt the conversation slip out of control. “Can we just…”

 

Esme found herself on her feet as Carlisle had turned with her in his arms to face his gathered family. He looked a little as though he thought he was dreaming.

 

“I’ve invited Esme here to prove that despite the fact that we are vampires,” he said in his ‘leader’ voice. “We are also intelligent, compassionate people with _standards.”_

 

Carlisle squeezed his eyes shut tight and grimaced as Alice’s empty popcorn bucket gave a light clunk against the floor, landing on top of the pile of wasted food behind her.

 

“We do have standards,” Emmett said from where he was sprawled on the floor. “They’re just really fucking low.”

 

“I just don’t like seeing people I know and respect stark buck-naked in bed together!” Edward burst in response to what Rosalie was thinking. “Doing… _things!”_

 

Emmett laughed.

 

“Edward,” he said, excitedly anticipating the employment of one of his favourite jokes. “Your _mom-”_

 

“Alright then,” Carlisle said tersely, clapping his hands together. “Who is going to give Esme a tour of the house?”

 


	32. Saying I Love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long to write!
> 
> Ugh! It was like chewing on cardboard, and not the fun ridged type either!
> 
> But hopefully now I'll be able to pick up the pace again and get some more chapters on the way.
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read!

“ME!” shouted Alice at a volume and pitch that made Esme’s ears squeal afterwards. “I have to give Esme the tour! I’ve _seen_ it!”

 

 _“Inside voice,_ Alice,” Carlisle said warningly. “And yes you may, if you promise to be _careful_ and if…Esme, you feel comfortable?”

 

Esme nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes.

 

“Sh-she might have to carry me, though,” she gasped, breathless with laughter. “I don’t…I don’t think I can stand on my own.”

 

“The human’s hysterical! Quick! Fetch a doctor!” Emmett cried in a false falsetto, ploughing into his father from the side and knocking him over - the whole thing sounding more like a quarry detonation than a football tackle.

 

“Carlisle! Are you alright!” Esme cried as Rosalie cracked a smile despite herself.

 

“I’ll have to carry you anyway, silly!” Alice twittered to her. “Otherwise how will you get upstairs?”

 

She giggled happily.

 

“We don’t even _have_ any!”

 

“When is Jasper coming back?” Edward asked weakly as he and Bella shared a weary look before she quietly departed for the kitchen.

 

“I’m fine,” said Carlisle’s muffled voice as he threw Emmett off him in the most courtly fashion he could and turned to Edward. “But I think we might have to _calm down a little,_ though, before this gets out of hand. There is a human present, and our behaviour is becoming a little _dangerous.”_

 

“She’ll be just fine!” Alice trilled, and before Esme knew it she had been whisked away to see the rest of, (what remained of), the house.

 

The place was like a maze, or an ants’ nest, wrung with twists and turns, dead ends and servants’ passages.

 

The whole house was mostly untouched from the time the manor must have been built, and any renovations obvious to her seemed more accidental than anything else, even if Esme had but a millisecond to notice before tiny hands pulled, pushed and prodded her onwards accompanied by the jabber of explanation at impossible speed.

 

Even so, Esme thought the place was like a fairytale, and she fell more and more in love with it with every step.

 

Eventually, the long serpentine corridor led out to a dimly lit room - a room lit by candles, and filled already with a collection of vampires who had presumably come by another route.

 

It was Carlisle who looked the most sheepish.

 

“I tried to dissuade her,” he said apologetically. “I really did.”

 

“Oh _guys!”_ said Esme, realising that the candlelit dinner she noticed had been laid out could be intended for no one else. “It’s just perfect!”

 

“And it’s just for the two of you!” said Alice as Emmett, whom Esme had somehow not noticed exit despite his size, waltzed back in wearing a bow tie with a plate of food for Esme and a plastic dog-toy roast chicken for his sceptical-looking father.

 

He set the food and ‘food’ down at the table.

 

“Dinair eez served!” he said with a flourish, in a bad french accent, and Esme giggled.

 

“Wow!” said Esme, smiling shyly as Carlisle apologetically pulled out a chair for her and looked around for somewhere dignified to put his chicken.

 

“No!” cried Emmett. “Leave it! It’s great! Look!”

 

He lunged forward in a blur and pressed the toy, making it give a loud hideous squeak.

 

“Everyone, thank you,” said Esme genuinely when the inevitable chortling had died down a little.

 

“No problem!” said Alice happily. “See you…later.”

 

“We’ll give you both some space,” Edward said with a meaningful nod to Carlisle and a warm smile to his companion.

 

The others bade their goodbyes too (Rosalie’s laced with a great deal of acid) leaving Carlisle to his chicken and his Esme.

 

“Very…enthusiastic,” said Esme, turning to the doctor, who looked just as good in the candlelight as he did in the sparkling sun, but softer somehow. 

 

More human.

 

“They like you,” he said gently, taking her hand.

 

“Not Rosalie,” Esme whispered hollowly. _“Poor_ Rosalie…”

 

Carlisle sighed.

 

“No, not yet,” he said, deciding truth was the best option. “But she will. It was like this with Bella too before she was turned.”

 

“…Because Bella was Edward’s mate as a human?” Esme remembered.

 

“Yes,” Carlisle replied. “And I never understood his attraction to her until I met you.”

 

“But she wasn’t his…singer?” 

 

“No,” replied Carlisle, sounding a little raspier than normal, instantly feeling the gas stove in his throat sear more forcefully at the reminder of Esme’s blood. “And that makes it different for us.”

 

Esme gave the doctor her loveliest encouraging smile.

 

“But I am _trying,_ Esme,” he said, taking her hand and staring into her chocolate eyes with an intensity that scorched her. “And we can make it work.”

 

He grinned.

 

“Now eat your pasta,” the vampire said in a much less ardent tone.

 

Esme looked at him and deliberately took a forkful of food while she tried to re-start her fluttering heart.

 

“Mmm, this is lovely,” she said, eyebrows flying up in pleasant surprise. “Who made it?”

 

“Bella,” said Carlisle with a small glow of pride for his youngest daughter. “She’s very insistent that we spend time together. She…”

 

Carlisle looked away.

 

“I think sometimes the…kids worry about me a little,” he admitted. “Especially Edward and Alice. I’ve…always been alone, and though I saw it every day…I didn’t truly believe that a vampire could be loved how…like you…”

 

Esme’s face crumpled as Carlisle dipped his head, embarrassed that he couldn’t find the right words and sounded just as choked-up as he felt.

 

“Carlisle,” Esme whispered, reaching out to brush his smooth cheek, performing one of the actions of tenderness he had never thought he would receive. “Please don’t say that.”

 

 _“Didn’t,”_ he breathed. “But I do now so…so thank you.”

 

He looked down as he felt a warm palm, so familiar now, on his arm. Esme’s smiling eyes were very close.

 

“No,” she said after a quick peck on the lips. “Thank _you.”_

 

As Esme finished her meal, Carlisle watched while playing absently with his dog-toy which made her laugh and greatly prolonged the process.

 

When she had finally finished, Esme insisted upon carrying her plates to the kitchen to wash them.

 

“There’s bubblegum and popping candy ice-cream in the freezer if you want any,” Carlisle said with his nose wrinkled. “Apparently there _is_ such a thing.”

 

Esme pulled a face.

 

“Well…tell Alice that’s lovely, but I think I’m a little full,” she said kindly.

 

“…And you don’t want to fall into some kind of hyperglycaemic coma,” Carlisle grinned. “Which I can understand.”

 

Esme huffed with feigned sternness.

 

“Now I didn’t say _that,_ Carlisle,” she chuckled. “Don’t twist my words.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered, burying his face in her neck as Esme walked to the kitchen sink in the room next door to wash her plate.

 

“Nope,” she said after Carlisle protested. “My mess.”

 

“But please!” said Carlisle, feeling the itch of compounded convention gnawing at him. “You’re a _guest,_ Esme. Let me.”

 

“Sorry,” Esme said, with a frown and a wash of defeat. “But I…I _have_ to…you see…”

 

“Esme,” Carlisle pleaded, bending his head to make eye contact, while pulling the face Esme had come to associate with ‘problem-solving’. “Try.”

 

“I…”

 

 _“Try,_ Esme,” he said, more enthusiastically. _“I_ will wash it.”

 

“But I-”

 

“Trust me to have done it exactly as you would have,” Carlisle whispered. “I _will_ do it properly, I promise.”

 

With a strained nod, Esme agreed and, breathlessly, she left Carlisle to the sink, watching intently as he turned on the water.

 

He took the washing-up sponge and, at human pace for Esme’s benefit, scrubbed the surface.

 

“A little more on the left…” Esme said tautly, knowing how rude she was being but also how important it was that he did it _correctly._

 

“This better?” Carlisle asked.

 

“Yes,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut against the pressing on her chest and the itch in her brain. “I…think it’s okay now.”

 

A wave of panic hit Esme with the boldness of her statement, but she suppressed it. 

 

This was _Carlisle,_ who could not doubt do _anything,_ let alone wash a plate, better than she could.

 

“Where would you like me to put it?” he asked kindly, but normally, not as though he was dealing with psychological illness.

 

“On the far end of the rack, food side towards the sink,” Esme said quietly.

 

Mildly, the doctor complied.

 

“There, see?” he said, giving Esme a proud smile.

 

She did not mirror the action.

 

“Esme, you look troubled,” he said, arms snaking back around her reflexively.

 

“I…think I’m alright,” she breathed shakily. “Am…am I alright?”

 

Carlisle leant down and pressed a kiss to her nose.

 

“You’re perfect,” he whispered. “Now, let me show you my study!”

 

Esme gave a squeak of surprise as she felt herself flying and then standing in a new, and considerably tidier room.

 

“Oh, an old gramophone!” she exclaimed in response to the first thing her eyes landed on, the plate momentarily forgotten as had been Carlisle’s intent.

 

The doctor pretended to look offended.

 

“Not _that_ old, thank you,” he said sniffily. “Compared to some.”

 

“Well you’re more _handsome,_ how’s that?” Esme teased him.

 

He grinned.

 

“I also…” the doctor said, jauntily hopping backwards towards one of his many alphabetically-ordered shelves. “…Have music…”

 

“Wow…” Esme said, as Carlisle slipped his hands snugly around her waist and began to sway her back and fourth to the chirpy piece that had begun to play. “This is proper…nineteen thirties?”

 

“Forty-one, actually,” he corrected her fondly. “But pretty close.”

 

Carlisle, seeing that Esme was curious, waltzed her closer to his old leather-lined book cabinet.

 

“Look at all these languages!” she said interestedly, running her finger down the books’ spines as boldly as she dared considering their obvious great age.

 

“I speak a lot of languages,” the doctor replied with a shrug. 

 

His face lit up.

 

“In fact…”

 

Esme spun around dizzily as the hands supporting her were suddenly across the room, clutching another record cover.

 

“Shall we have a sample?” he asked, a little shyly. “It’s a modern one but…”

 

He looked as if he should be blushing.

 

“I’m…I thought…well, it’s one of my, um, favourites…”

 

Carlisle was halting as he changed the record and put the needle down. Esme could tell that she was about to hear something very special to him.

 

Carlisle slipped his arms back around her waist.

 

Esme hummed contentedly as the music started to twinkle through the air.

 

“Oooh, Span-no…Italian?” she wondered softly.

 

Carlisle nodded as he closed his eyes.

 

“It’s beautiful…” Esme whispered, awed as the unfamiliar words wrapped themselves around Carlisle and herself, tangling them together in their embrace.

 

The words were beautiful, and for some reason made Esme think of vast fields of wheat under the afternoon sun and the smell of summer on a wooden veranda.

 

The thought of it suddenly made her overwhelmingly sad, as if she had lost someone.

 

Carlisle himself looked equally melancholy, and Esme wondered what _he_ felt in the music.

 

“Esme,” he whispered after a few moments, sliding his hands down her back and cupping then around her waist. “My singer. You always sing to me, my love.”

 

He leaned in very close and his minty scent warmed Esme’s nose.

 

“Let me sing to you,” he said, softer than falling snow.

 

Esme closed her eyes and let her head fall against his immovable chest.  


She couldn’t stop the grin from spreading against her face when she heard him sing for the first time.

 

_What_ **_am_ ** _I going to do with you, Carlisle?_

 

His voice was very clear, and obscenely rich. It seemed to dance around each note rather than settle on it and warmed Esme to her very core like a cup of cocoa.

 

She was fascinated by the way he moved his mouth around the foreign words, all the careful consonants and the ringing vowels and was reminded of how ancient and how wise he was. Of how much he had seen and heard and felt, things from times and places she couldn't imagine.

 

Though now, her mind seemed eager to try.

 

She could almost feel the soft breeze in the boughs of an enormous tree, ribbons in her hair and white socks up to her knees.

 

_Puffy clouds and thunderstorms._

 

_China sets and an old kitchen table, scrubbed with beeswax._

 

Carlisle continued to sing, and Esme continued to see.

 

_The town was strange, small, and there were horses in the street._

 

_A young man was looking at her, and she got a terrible feeling, as if she knew him._

 

The crescendo of the song made Esme tremble.

 

“L’amore non ha un senso,” Carlisle sung passionately as he reached the final chorus. 

 

_The wheat swayed in the sun._

 

“L’amore non ha un nome.”

 

_That perfect baby smell._

 

“L’amore va negli occhi.”

 

_A simple white dress laid out on the bed with the patchwork quilt she would never sleep in again._

 

“L’amore scalda il cuore.”

 

He pulled back to look in Esme’s eyes, and she saw the awe swimming within his. She imagined _she_ looked terrified.

 

“L’amore batte i denti…” he continued with his spellbindingly beautiful voice, stroking a finger down Esme’s face. “L’amore non ha ragione…”

 

As if broken, Carlisle sagged closer against her and Esme clung to him like she had clung to her cotton skirt.

 

_She was so cold in the storm, and far below her the black waves beat gleefully against the wet rock, like the pigs used to gnaw at their wooden fence before she fed them._

 

_She hurt._

 

_Because there was something she desperately wanted, but couldn’t have._

 

Carlisle hurt too. Esme could feel him hurting.

 

“L’amore mio…sei tu,” the vampire sang in a ragged whisper against her ear. “My love…is you. L’amore mio…sei…”

 

As the music faded away with an echo, Esme began to feel the telltale rumble of sobs in her chest but she couldn’t seem to stop them.

 

The wheat field was swept from her grasp like a fading dream, or a wave tugging its way back down the beach.

 

She had no idea where it had come from in the first place.

 

“That bad?” Carlisle laughed as she buried her wet face in his chest, through Esme sensed the anxiety behind the question and what it had cost him to bear his soul to her in such a way.

 

“No, that was beautiful…so…so beautiful,” Esme sniffed, wiping her eyes with trembling hands. “What…w-what does it mean?”

 

“L’amore Esiste,” Carlisle said, pleased to be able to explain. “‘Love exists’. It’s talking about how love can creep up on you, how it can ‘come from nothing’. It’s…a rather poetic and convoluted way of saying…”

 

Carlisle took Esme’s face, like a dandelion clock, between his kind hands.

 

As she looked in her eyes, she could have sworn she could could see a shadow of the periwinkle blue they used to be.

 

“Saying I love you,” he told her at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is L’amore Esiste by Francesca Michielin and you can find the lyrics with translation into lots of languages on ‘Lyricstranslate’.
> 
> It’s a great song if you need a cry, at any rate. 
> 
> And watch the video too!


	33. Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's long and intense, so make your coffees now, folks!

Carlisle had never sung a woman into bed before. 

 

Carrying one bridal style up to the bedroom, however, he _had_ done, though this time it was a new experience entirely, because Monique the Canadian optometrist had certainly not been his _actual Esme._

 

In the bedroom that had been deemed to be his (as it was the smallest and most boring in the house), though he rarely used it, somebody, (probably Bella on Alice’s instruction), had taken the time to make up the bed and to tidy up a little, something Carlisle barely noticed, unable to tear his eyes away from Esme’s.

 

In his strong arms, Esme’s heart was pounding with terror and excitement. 

 

When she’d lost her mind and decided to let another man take her to bed, she didn’t know. It was somewhere between the first and second verses of the song, she thought.

 

She hadn’t even shaved her legs. She wasn’t prepared for this, but somehow she knew it wouldn’t matter.

 

“I’m not…I haven’t prepped?” Esme said haltingly as Carlisle sniggered his way through the manoeuvre needed to get them both through the door in their current position. “So, um, this might be a little… _au naturale,_ you might say.”

 

Carlisle let the human down _oh so_ gently and, wasting no time, kicked off his shoes

 

“Good,” replied, flashing her a smile as he loosened his tie.

 

He was so…

 

So…

 

Well, he was looking particularly Thor-like that evening, it had to be said.

 

“Um…can I…can I put my shoes here?” Esme asked, gesturing to the space by his door.

 

“Anywhere is fine,” he told her, then, in a move Esme found very sweet, wordlessly the doctor moved his own shoes to sit neatly next to hers.

 

Seeing the two pairs together like that, masculine and feminine, big and small, resting against one another after a hard day of being worn, Esme found strangely euphemistic.

 

Esme’s heart quickened, whether from anticipation or all-out panic, she didn’t know.

 

“Esme?”

 

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, jumping at his voice and turning to see that Carlisle had already taken off his shirt and T-shirt and was balling them both, quite shyly, between his hands.

 

“If you didn’t want to, or if you change your mind at any point, tell me, won’t you?” he said as quietly as he could get away with around human ears.

 

“Of course,” Esme smiled. “But I _do_ want to.”

 

She tutted.

 

“However,” she continued. “You’re stretching that shirt completely out of shape, Carlisle, I can hardly bear to watch.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, chastised, dropping both articles straight onto the floor like a toddler.

 

“But you _do_ have a very nice chest, so I’ll forgive you,” Esme laughed.

 

Carlisle looked genuinely relieved.

 

“Good! I’m glad you…er…like it?” he said lamely, anxiousness in his angel’s face. “I hope I haven’t been too…”

 

He looked over to Esme who was still very resolutely dressed.

 

“Forward…I’mjustnervous, yousee,” he explained in a slurry.

 

 _Oh!_ ** _Very_** _smooth, you_ ** _stupid_** _elephant!_ he thought to himself savagely.

 

Esme seemed to read his mind.

 

“Well, you have no need to be, Carlisle,” she said softly, walking over to take his hands. “Because _I_ don’t think you’re being too forward.”

 

“Essie,” he said, going a step further by folding her into a hug. “This is…this will be hard for you, I appreciate that. And it’s hard for me too. But we can do this together, can’t we?”

 

Carlisle's thinking was along the the same lines as Esme's was - get through it once and they’d be cured. 

 

 _He_ would be able to resist her scent and _she_ could be touched by a man intimately without going into panic and being downed in hideous memories. 

 

Like he said, they could do it together, right?

 

“Esme?”

 

“Yes,” she whispered, finding her strength in the face of Carlisle’s sudden weakness. “You’re right.”

 

She reached up on tip-toe to mess up the hair he kept very meticulously groomed.

 

“Now come on, Carlisle, you beautiful man!” she giggled, dragging him towards the bed. “Time ticks on for us mere mortals.”

 

Esme gave a delightful squeal as, with a wash of dark, ink-like smoke, Carlisle soared across the room and flattened her to the bed where he began smothering her with kisses.

 

“Oh God, we shouldn’t be doing this!” she laughed as he buried his head in her tummy. “This is truly…”

 

Carlisle gave her a pixie’s grin.

 

“Dumb,” he said while Esme stroked his grinning cheeks. “Stupid…”

 

“Irresponsible…”

 

“Selfish…”

 

“Childish…Wait, no!” she amended, laughing. “I take that one _way_ back!”

 

“Very adult,” Carlisle grinned as with one lightning-quick move Esme found herself lying on top of him, having a lock of her hair played with. “We are _adult_ and _sophisticated.”_

 

Smiling broadly, like the sun, Esme leaned in and kindly nuzzled the doctor’s handsome nose with her own which Carlisle couldn’t say any other bedmate had done before.

 

He _loved_ it.

 

“Are you still alright with this?” he asked her again, a little breathlessly.

 

“If you are?” she replied.

 

As he considered this monumentally important question, there was a moment, just a moment, when Carlisle’s face went completely blank, like the supernatural stone he was hewn from.

 

Blank.

 

Curiously, _lovingly,_ Esme traced his face, every perfectly-designed contour and plane while his black eyes stared upwards, apparently seeing nothing.

 

For some reason, she wasn’t afraid, though any other vampire would have been able to recognise that face and would have slowly, _slowly_ inched themselves away.

 

Esme was just beginning to wonder if he was alright when the gold in his eyes and the animation in his body sprung back.

 

 _“Am_ I?” he said incredulously and very enthusiastically, looking more beautiful than Esme had ever seen him.

 

Ecstatic, Esme grinned down at him, feeling the triumph coursing through her for conquering her fear enough to allow her this incredible moment with the man she loved.

 

As she and Carlisle shared kisses, every cell in Esme’s delicate body was infused with the happiness that bubbled through her blood.

 

Her _blood._

 

Her fucking _blood._

 

The scent Carlisle was drowning in was wonderful and terrible at the same time. The most delicious food, the most divine perfume, the richest velvet.

 

And she was so soft and warm and so _impossibly_ delicate like a trembling baby bird. 

 

 _Oh_ ** _God,_** he thought as he moved her mouth with hers, then shifted her effortlessly to kiss down her jaw, her neck…

 

He didn’t know what would be worse, crushing her to death in a moment of enthusiasm or sinking his teeth into her soft flesh and feeling her life drain away down his throat.

 

Fuck, he didn’t know what would be _better…_

 

Like the curtain coming down at the theatre after a lively musical, the blank look was back on Carlisle’s face.

 

He snarled in an attempt to clear his head but it didn’t work. The throbbing artery in the animal’s neck was his only focus. 

 

He kissed it again, and again harder, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to break its skin. He needed to be inside it in all senses.

 

“Carlisle?”

 

With a kind of cool feeling, he realised the animal was going to die. But is wasn’t his fault. It was just so delicious. It would be worth it.

 

_“Carlisle!”_

 

The frightened little word brought the vampire round long enough to come to his senses again.

 

His predator’s eyes fixed on the human’s, wide with fear. 

 

This was the first time Esme has seen this side of him.

 

This was what he had dreaded.

 

Unlike what Carlisle thought, _he_ was on top. He found his hands gripping Esme’s wrists tightly, pinning them above her head, and his legs forcing hers apart to give him a better angle on her jugular. 

 

She was hurt. He was _hurting_ her.

 

With a gasp, he leapt backwards, releasing her and, to his horror, allowing her to take a proper (and rather desperately sharp) breath for the first time in…

 

He didn’t know. How long had he been torturing her?

 

“Esme,” he rasped. “I’m…I didn’t mean. I didn’t even realise…”

 

She was crying and breathing heavily and her cheeks were flushed. Her shirt was ripped open from the neck to her chest while her bra strap was snapped and it hung limply and uselessly over her outer garment. On her gorgeous swan-like neck was a hideous blooming bruise and a long scratch. Her cardigan was hanging from the light fixture above them.

 

Carlisle didn’t even remember doing that. H- _he_ had done that?

 

His lovely Esme. He couldn’t let this go on. He had nearly killed her.

 

No, nearly killed her and _enjoyed_ it.

 

Esme was weeping. 

 

She looked so beautiful…just _so_ beautiful…and so fragrant. And _God_ how she smelled when she was impassioned…

 

Death was longing to wrap his chiselled hands around her throat and choke the life out of those perfect kind eyes.

 

Carlisle wanted to continue.

 

So did Esme, apparently.

 

“It’s okay,” she breathed, eyes a little wider and more unfocused than they should have been, shifting to rest a hand on the vampire’s heaving chest. “Don’t…it’s okay…we can…I can do better. It was my fault.”

 

Why was she offering herself to him like this? After what he did? What he was _going_ to do?

 

_Yes…that’s right…_

 

Evil prickled through Carlisle’s hands. The same evil that wanted to rip throats and slice arteries with scalpel blades, letting the pathetic slab of meat on the operating table bleed out.

 

That wanted to bring the airplanes he sat on out of the sky. 

 

Drown millions of people in tsunamis. 

 

Have Yellowstone paint the sky red.

 

Blow the roof off nuclear reactors so hard they entered orbit.

 

Make the oceans boil, cities vaporise.

 

And, worst of all, _kill_ Esme Swan. Platt. Whatever the fuck she was calling herself these days. Evenson, even.

 

And then doctor Cullen peeked through the red fog, begging, _pleading_ with the demon not to become like _that_ man. The one who had hurt Esme.

 

 _Nobody_ should hurt Esme.

 

“Get out,” said Carlisle with a quiet anger, desperate and using every ounce of strength he had. “This is anything _but_ ‘okay’, Esme.”

 

The burning was unreal.

 

He was _so_ close to taking what he craved - the blood, body and life of that perfectly pure soul. 

 

And he was letting her escape!

 

The beast inside Carlisle shrieked with frustration at this weakness while Esme made no move to leave, rather levelled him with her most reasonable, compassionate gaze.

 

She wasn’t leaving. Why wasn’t she _leaving?_

 

She was just _looking_ at him.

 

“You look at me like I’m going to stop,” Carlisle shouted. “I _won’t_ stop, Esme. And I don’t have a lot of choice about that!”

 

“You will, Carlisle,” she murmured, taking both of his shaking fists gently in her warm hands. “You will. For us.”

 

The beast was disgusted.

 

He knew what she was trying to do. Tame him, like the fucking little _prey_ animals she liked to play with. Like the filthy wolves. She thought he was like them.

 

She thought he was alive.

 

But he was Death.

 

And then Carlisle realised she really didn’t understand.

 

How could she, a human, ever appreciate bloodlust such as his?

 

How could other vampires, even?

 

The urge and ability to kill… _everything?_

 

Nobody understood him, had ever understood him or _would_ understand him because his last hope for being understood was staring at him with enormous, naïve eyes, like every animal he could ever remember killing.

 

And that made him suddenly livid.

 

“GET _OUT!”_ Carlisle roared while Esme jumped with alarm at how loud and inhuman the sound was.

 

It seemed to come from all directions, like the black smoke pouring from every surface and making her lungs ache, and not just his gaping, murderous mouth.

 

 “GET THE _FUCK_ OUT OF MY HOUSE AND _NEVER_ COME BACK!”

 

Esme jumped up, alarmed, and with one last look at the beautiful fallen angel she sprinted from the room. 

 

She stumbled, shoeless and draped in the ragged remainder of her clothes, down the corridor and realised, to her horror, that she didn’t actually know the way out of this labyrinthine mansion and that she had run the wrong way, which meant that she would have to run _back_ past the thing Carlisle had just become to reach the- 

 

Esme screamed as there was a shattering of glass and the window nearest to her exploded.

 

She didn’t actually see what happened, but felt briefly the sensation of flying before she was belted into Bella’s car. She had been called by Alice - the tiny vampire having just seen how the evening would end.

 

 _Drive away,_ Carlisle prayed. _Just go. I can’t hold on._

 

But, just in time, she did, leaving the doctor to sob, tearless, into the cardigan that Esme had been forced to leave behind which still carried her magical scent.

 

In Bella’s car, Esme was shaking violently and, as they hit the main road, started wrenching up the beautiful meal the vampire had made her.

 

“Esme,” Bella said. “Calm down. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

 

Esme shook her head.

 

She’d never be safe again.

 

“He-he didn’t stop,” Esme chattered through her shivers, vomit held between cupped hands. “I…I _told_ him but…he didn’t stop. He wasn’t going to stop.”

 

“But he did,” Bella replied in the calm voice she had learned from Jasper. “And that was hard for him and it saved your life.”

 

“He didn’t stop,” Esme whispered, so quietly another human couldn’t have heard her. “He wanted to kill me.”

 

“He didn’t want to,” Bella corrected her in an ashy voice. “He felt like he…ought to.”

 

“Oh _Jesus,”_ Esme whimpered, burying her face in her wrists.

 

After offering Esme a pack of tissues for the various human processes that were occurring in her speeding car, Bella extended a cold hand of sympathy, which Esme clung to rigidly all the way back to Charlie’s house.

 

“‘Kay,” Bella said as she eyed Esme critically, as usual level-headed in a crisis. “You can’t walk in like that or…”

 

She gave a strained giggle.

 

“I was gonna say he’ll call the cops, but he _is_ the cops, so…”

 

In one sweep, Bella stripped off her jumper. Then, with a movement too quick for Esme to see, she had her jeans in her hand too.

 

“Change into my clothes,” she commanded the human.

 

After having done so, Esme took some deep, deep breaths and tried to wipe the mascara tracks off her cheeks and the vomit from between her fingers, praying all the while she would get to the bathroom before she had to face either of the house’s other inhabitants.

 

Blessedly, as Esme shakily opened the door, she heard the TV in the living room.

 

“Hey, Esme,” Charlie called over the baseball. “How was it?”

 

“Good,” Esme replied, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

 

The TV instantly muted.

 

“Es, you okay?” Charlie called, concerned.

 

“Yeah,” Esme huffed. “I’m-I’m good, just tired.”

 

With that, she dashed upstairs to her room, trying not to let more tears come, because if they did, they wouldn’t stop. 

 

Esme now realised very well how deep in the shit she was. 

 

She’d seen Carlisle angry, she’d seen him lose the control that he kept up so fastidiously and she knew _damn_ well that a locked door or a closed window would not be keeping the doctor out if he wanted her. 

 

Wanted to kill her. Wanted…her.

 

His eyes…she’d never forget the eyes…

 

But what sickened Esme the most was that she _still_ thought she could reason with him, even when his eyes had gone like that, when he’d looked at her like that.

 

Running as quietly as she could into the bathroom, Esme cleaned herself up with the scary, numb normality that precedes a complete breakdown (which she knew very well from experience).

 

Yes, she knew this situation. 

 

In a way, Charles had been like Carlisle. 

 

Sweet, kind, funny and _sorry_ after he had stepped out of line. Someone whom Esme had loved. But, near the end, increasingly when she looked into his eyes, the nice guy that she had met wasn’t home, and then the pain came. 

 

That evening, Carlisle hadn’t been home. And guess what? She still loved the beast he’d left behind.

 

Esme shuffled back into her bedroom, feeling the enormous wave of dread on the horizon but quickly coming closer, closer…

 

It hit.

 

Burying her head in the pillow so as not to alert Charlie or Renée, Esme sobbed desperately. 

 

Why was this happening? Happening again? What was _wrong_ with her?

 

She jumped violently when she heard the knock at the window. In fact, Esme couldn’t imagine a time for the rest of her life when she wouldn’t be scared after what had just happened to her.

 

“Esme?” asked a quiet voice.

 

Bella was back. 

 

Esme shook her head into the pillow and cried harder.

 

“Esme, please! I want to check you’re okay…”

 

The human didn’t move.

 

“Esme?”

 

Finally, slowly and unsteadily, as if she were being operated by strings, Esme walked to the window and let the young vampire in.

 

“Hey, Esme,” Bella said, relieved. “How are you fee-”

 

“Bella,” Esme interrupted ardently, grabbing the girl’s cold hand. “Bella, I am _sick._ I am _ill._ I was prepared to go to bed with a man who has told me, a number of times, that he wants to kill me. _Again.”_

 

Esme looked as if she was going to be sick a second time, as if there were anything left to come up.

 

“He’s going to come after me,” she hissed with a sob in her voice. “And when he does, there’s nothing I can do. Hell…”

 

She gave a quiet hysterical laugh at her own expense.

 

“Maybe I’ll even let him in!”

 

Esme took a few deep breaths while Bella watched calmly.

 

“Bella,” Esme pleaded of the teen. “Bella, what _happened_ to him?”

 

“Bloodlust,” Bella said plainly. “It’s what we are. I think he’s been trying to communicate to you how serious it can be, especially seeing as you’re his blood singer. _Only_ because you are, actually. Carlisle has the best control over his instincts of any vampire we know of. Well…”

 

Bella looked sheepish.

 

“Er…normally, that is.”

 

“So…we can’t…I mean, ‘we’ isn’t going to happen?” Esme asked with more poise than she felt while watching the world collapse around her. “He can’t change me into a vampire and as a human I…”

 

Esme searched for the words to describe what had happened to Carlisle.

 

“I do _that_ to him!”

 

Bella nodded.

 

“Esme,” she began seriously. “I know what you’re going through, trust me.”

 

She sighed.

 

“You know I’m Edward’s mate?”

 

Esme quietly confirmed.

 

“Well, we found each other when I was still human and it was…” Bella, usually so eloquent, had trouble finding the right word before settling on a basic one. “Hard. Really hard. And it’s harder for you two because you sing to him.”

 

Esme looked up to her bland ceiling despondently.

 

“But you need to understand, Esme,” Bella carried on quickly. “Carlisle’s been alone for hundreds of years, was _completely_ alone before Edward, and so still he struggles with the idea that he can actually be in a real relationship. Honestly…”

 

Bella shook her head.

 

“Y’know, we were all pretty worried about him, and we’re thrilled that he has you.”

 

“He doesn’t have me,” replied Esme hollowly. “He won’t change-”

 

“I’ll do it.”

 

Esme turned to Bella in shock.

 

“Y-you _would?”_ she asked disbelievingly.

 

“Sure,” replied Bella in that effortlessly amicable tone she usually used. “Or Edward or Alice. Somebody has to, at any rate.”

 

“But Carlisle doesn’t want me to be a vampire,” Esme whispered, for the first time appreciating why that was.

 

“Yes he does,” cut in Bella immediately. “He’d just never say so in case you felt pushed into it. And he’s afraid that you’d want _him_ to do it specifically and he’d hurt you, that was Edward’s beef too.”

 

“So…how did it go?” asked Esme warily. “You and Edward, I mean.”

 

“A lot of um-ing and ah-ing,” replied Bella with a nervous giggle. “Edward didn’t want to change me, for the same reasons as, I suspect, Carlisle wants you to be human…and Rosalie was dead against it but…in the end another vampire got me. James, his name was, and after I was rescued from him, already bitten…they just let the venom spread. It was too late.”

 

“So…an accident?” asked Esme, not feeling cheered.

 

“Yeah…”

 

Bella grinned.

 

“But believe me,” she continued with an inhumanly dazzling grin. “Despite all he’d said, Edward couldn’t keep the smile off his face.”

 

Esme smiled too despite the evening she’d had, that beautiful curving dimply one and Bella thought of all Carlisle was going to give up if he didn’t stop being so damn _stubborn_ and so damn _noble._

 

But Bella knew Carlisle, and he’d do it. He would give Esme up if he thought it was better for her.

 

_What a fool…_

 

Esme bid Bella the cheeriest goodnight she could manage under the circumstances, dropping the plastic smile she had perfected during her years with Charles as soon as the young vampire had slipped away into the night.

 

Instead of putting herself to bed, Esme curled up tight on the floor in preparation for the inevitable but unspeakably painful decision she had somehow always known she was going to make, and all she was about to give up.

 

Finally, when sleep did come, it was filled with pictures of Charlie, Renée and their unborn little baby.

 

A little later, Esme woke up in pitch darkness, shaking, remembering the plate she hadn’t washed up herself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!
> 
> Aaaahhh...the rollercoaster of life (or lack thereof), huh?
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to all those who thought things were going just a little TOO well!


	34. A Lie And A Goodbye

After the nagging of the plate woke her, Sunday began early for Esme amongst a wave of stomach cramps and achy eyes.

 

It was five AM when she finally gave up on sleep and relocated to the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath with her upset stomach threatening action.

 

After the incident she was, if possible, more scared than she had ever been before of what her mind was able and _willing_ to forgive. Plus, the reality of what she was about to ask of Carlisle, of herself, of his _family,_ even, was threatening to crush her.

 

But the decision had been made, for better or worse. And there was no going back.

 

At six-thirty, Esme started packing a bag which managed to take her all of the two-and-a-half hours until the phone beside her buzzed, making her stomach flip with habitual panic.

 

She took a deep, calming breath through her nose as the words blurred on the screen, somehow taking up the entirety of her vision.

 

 _Esme, take the west road out of town and I’ll be waiting for you by the town sign,_ Carlisle had written. _Let’s go for a drive._

 

Feeling panic rising in her chest, Esme shuddered and allowed a few complimentary tears to seep out from between her closed eyelids.

 

_Oh God, oh God…What am I doing?_

 

After splashing some water on her face, Esme coaxed her expression into one of passable normality and quivered her way downstairs to attempt breakfast.

 

“Hi Renée,” Esme said quietly as she arrived in the kitchen, Renée’s baby bump immediately drawing her gaze like it always did. “Hey Charlie.”

 

“Hey, you alright?” Charlie frowned, immediately worried by what he saw in his sister’s drawn face.

 

“Yeah just…exhausted…” Esme sighed, lowing herself gently into a kitchen chair and stifling the all-too-familiar wince as her bruised ribs protested.

 

Renée, with her usual sweet blindness, gave Charlie a suggestive raised eyebrow that somehow, despite her tiredness, Esme failed to miss.

 

“Not like _that,_ Renée,” Esme sighed tiredly, with a wave of irritation. “Honestly!”

 

“Aww, too bad,” the other woman continued brightly. “But how was it last night? Aside from that monumental disappointment?”

 

The ribs throbbed.

 

“Renée,” Charlie spluttered incredulously. “They’ve been together for a _week.”_

 

“It _was_ the third date…” she shot back.

 

Esme gave her sister-in-law such an odd look it was sufficient to silence her.

 

“We thought we’d give you some privacy, last night when you got back,” Charlie said gruffly. “But I…er…hope you didn’t think we were disinterested.”

 

He gave one of his multitude of meaningful shrugs.

 

“No it was…fun,” Esme sighed, forehead creasing. “His family’s really sweet and…we found out a lot about one another, I guess.”

 

“Good,” Charlie said. “That’s good.”

 

There was a beat of silence.

 

“So I take it you didn’t have to use that pepper spray?” he continued at last.

 

Renée swatted him on the forearm exasperatedly and Esme began to laugh shrilly.

 

“Nope, it didn’t come to that,” she told them truthfully.

 

No, pepper spray wouldn’t be making an appearance. In fact, a can of concentrated sodium hydroxide would likely do nothing more than annoy the beast with the black eyes…

 

“I’m staying over at Billy’s house for a little while,” Esme burst suddenly, before she could change her mind.

 

“Oh,” Charlie said, thrown a little by the suddenness of this proclamation. “Any…particular reason?”

 

“Jacob wants to go camping with his friends so I agreed to help Billy out a little while he’s gone,” Esme told him, fists clenched under the table.

 

Esme’s stomach cramped with the lie. She wasn’t a bad liar, even to a police officer, she just hated to do it, especially to Charlie who only wanted to protect her.

 

“Esme you know you don’t have to do that,” Carlisle said, face softening at his sister’s otherworldly kindness.

 

“No!” Esme insisted. “I _want_ to see Billy! I haven’t seen him since-”

 

“Since you started seeing…Cul- _Carlisle,_ right?” Charlie said wryly, with a rather half-hearted but well-meant attempt at respect for the doctor.

 

“Well…I hadn’t noticed…” Esme continued bravely, nails digging painfully into her palm. “Anyway, Jacob needs a break, you know? I know Billy feels bad for what he has to do for him.”

 

“The Quillutes do look after each other, though, Esme,” Charlie said soothingly. “Jacob isn’t being robbed of his adolescence. I know Sue’s over a lot. They’ve got a real tight-knit pack down on the rez.”

 

Before Esme could pale further, the Sunday breakfast fairy got fidgety.

 

“Have you had enough to eat?” Renée asked, gesturing to the dry toast on Esme’s plate that had been more picked-at than ingested.

 

“Yeah, sure I have, I had dinner with Carlisle and I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat for days after that!” Esme replied with slightly hysterical cheerfulness.

 

Renée made a noise of approval.

 

“And the man can cook,” she tutted in amazement as Esme ducked out of the room before either of them could see her face.

 

“What the hell’s up today?” Charlie asked his wife in a mutter as they heard Esme’s gentle feet on the stairs.

 

Renée pursed her lips and rubbed her swollen belly unconsciously.

 

“Not sure. I guess it’s just weird for her to have spent so much time with a guy,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s…y’know, maybe a lot of…you-know-who’s crap has come back up?”

 

Charlie grunted and opened his newspaper thoughtfully, a frown on his face, and hadn’t pretended to read even the headline before Esme had come down with her bag.

 

“Guys,” she said in a tiny voice.

 

She stood clasping her bag and looking a little like a war refugee.

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you two how much you honestly mean to me,” she whispered. “And I’m so glad I came here and I just…needed to tell you that. Whatever happens you’re the best. And you’re my family.”

 

“Awww, Esme,” Renée cooed and squeezed her in a hug.

 

“C’mere you!” Charlie grinned, pulling his girls, even of the unborn variety, into a bigger cuddle, though he wasn’t usually the type to do such a thing.

 

He leaned in to whisper to Esme.

 

“Esme, I can see you’re not well today,” he said. “I’m sure Billy wouldn’t want you to go out of your way for him whilst you’re sick.”

 

Pulling away, Esme sniffed and tried to calm herself.

 

“No, I have to go,” she said quietly, an odd deadness in her eyes.

 

A rather recognisable deadness.

 

Charlie froze.

 

“You’re not running off with Cullen, are you?” he asked, alarm in his face with the new inspiration.

 

Esme’s stomach churned and her heart threatened to burn it’s way out of her chest while she looked Charlie deep in the eye.

 

“No, you know I wouldn’t do that to you,” she whispered.

 

Charlie pursed his lips, warring with the idea of giving Esme the freedom she was owed as a fellow adult or tying her down with blankets and ice-cream to the sofa so she couldn’t do anything foolish.

 

However, before he snapped out of his thoughts, his wife was already chivvying Esme towards the door.

 

“Alright, you take care now,” Renée said, who personally thought that having a relative run off with the Dr Cullen would be rather glamorous.

 

“Will do,” Esme said with a tight smile.

 

And then, with a last glance at the rug, she was gone.

 

Looking back with a taut breath, Esme thought the house looked somehow different. With a swell of emotion, she appreciated how fond of it she’d become in the months that she’d lived there. Her little yellow escape.

 

Getting numbly into the car, Esme was engulfed with another wave of tears.

 

Her little car.

 

The little car that Carlisle had driven her home in.

 

She buried her head in her hands, knowing that whichever way the day went, she was tearing herself in two.

 

The pain of the new laceration of her soul carried Esme all the way to her meeting place, without her having really seen the road at all.

 

In seemingly no time at all, she pulled up behind the Mercedes and, grabbing the bag she had packed, she shut the car door with grim finality and turned to face the future.

 

“Carlisle?” she called when after a few tense moments, the man had not appeared, though Esme could sense him somewhere nearby.

 

“Here,” he said softly, appearing from invisibility out of the dark web-like smoke that he wasn’t bothering to hide from her anymore.

 

Esme gasped. Not in surprise, (she had got fairly used to being snuck up on recently and invisibility was just another trait to shrug at and accept by this point), but at _him._

 

Carlisle’s face looked as beautiful as ever, more so, even, and his eyes shone gold. He even smiled a little.

 

But, for the first time Esme had seen, he was dressed in black.

 

 _All_ in black. The deepest, darkest, most total shade of black imaginable.

 

The contrast between it and his bitterly white skin almost made Esme’s eyes sting.

 

She had never seen him wear any black before. Ever. Not even a shoelace, and now she knew why he had taken such pains to avoid it.

 

In his natural colour, Dr Cullen looked taller, and infinitely more dangerous than normal. 

 

Untouchable.

 

Untameable.

 

Unfathomable.

 

His whole body sang with the pain and grief caused by thousands upon thousands of deaths but he carried it well, with dignity.

 

Oddly, it suited him.

 

Esme couldn’t believe this was the man she had been so close to, both emotionally and physically. There was something toxic in his smile, something grievous in his gait, something evil in his eye.

 

It made her want to cry. She hated it, this darkness, like an oil spill smothering a tropical sea. With a wave of disgust, she felt like she might vomit.

 

It also made her want to throw her arms around him and kiss him because this was _her_ Carlisle, and somehow she could sense that the darkness caused him just as much pain as it did her, he just hid it better. Probably just used to it.

 

And _God_ he was gorgeous. _So_ beautiful that it made her want to forgive him of everything and anything, if only she could just get to  _look_ at him.

 

She clutched the duffel bag tighter, aching with her decision, seeing pictures of Renée, Charlie and their little baby, smiling outside the yellow house with the seashells.

 

Not knowing how to handle the pain of being cleaved in two, in the end Esme settled upon tears.

 

“I know,” Carlisle said sympathetically, misunderstanding. “It can have that effect upon people, seeing what I really am. It’s repulsive.”

 

 _But it isn’t!_ Esme wanted to shout, except she couldn’t find her voice.

 

“Esme, come with me,” the doctor invited her.

 

“Where are we going?” she whispered, feeling a swell of the most primal dread despite herself.

 

“I’m going to show you my…talent,” Carlisle said in his silkiest and most handsome voice. “But first we need to go fishing.”

 

He opened the passenger door of his now-familiar car and Esme got inside.

 

They drove in silence, Carlisle seeing Esme fiddling with her phone which was uncharacteristic of her but he knew enough of human behaviour to know she probably didn’t want him to talk to her.

 

And he couldn’t blame her.

 

He had indeed noticed the duffel bag tucked under the seat and supposed Esme was texting Charlie, telling him to ignore her goodbye note because she’d just realised that Carlisle Cullen was a fucking monster and she didn’t want to stay with him a second longer, let alone plead with him for an immortality by his side.

 

And why was the drive taking so damn long today?

 

Supposedly, the world falling down around him made Carlisle drive slower than normal, rather than faster.

 

The simplest thing like a _road_ leading to a _place_ began to make no sense when he knew he would never get where he needed to go - when life was his final destination, rather then the journey to something better.

 

Beside him, something better looked bleaker than he’d ever seen her.

 

He sped up again.

 

Upon reaching the rock pools where he had unintentionally spooked Cheetos, Carlisle didn’t bother with the net to capture the tiny fish he knew would be in there, he merely darted forwards wordlessly and caught each fish between his forefinger and thumb before placing them, almost lovingly, in his ridiculous pink bucket.

 

When he had a sufficient number, Carlisle became completely still and looked at his handiwork with a faraway face.

 

Esme felt the air pressure change, and almost immediately, the fish started writhing.

 

“Carlisle?”

 

He continued to stare.

 

“…C-Carlisle?”

 

It was the most disturbing thing she had ever seen.

 

“Carlisle _STOP!”_ Esme shrieked, shocked at the cruelty. “What are you _doing_ to them?”

 

The thrashing became unbearable.

 

Esme launched herself at Carlisle, pounding him ineffectively with her thistledown fists.

 

“Stop, stop, _stop!_ You’re hurting them!”

 

Nothing. She may have well thrown herself against some kind of basaltic outcropping for the good it did.

 

Sobbing, she knelt beside the fish and tried desperately to scoop them out but still in her hands they writhed, they suffered.

 

Then, as one, all the fish became still. Before Esme’s eyes, their poor little broken, tortured bodies began to rot, turning the water black with filth.

 

She thought she was going to be sick. That was evil. Pure, bloody evil.

 

Furious, Esme stood on shaking legs and turned to Carlisle who was staring at the bucket like a kid who had just kicked over his own sandcastle and couldn’t quite articulate why he’d done it.

 

“You see?” Carlisle said softly.

 

There was no menace in his voice. There didn’t need to be. He’d demonstrated his point. 

 

“Yes, I do,” Esme whispered, white-hot anger that came with any cruelty to animals beating through her body.

 

Carlisle could smell it. There wasn’t, as he had hoped before the exercise, the presence of life-preserving fear, merely a rage with which he himself may have been proud.

 

“Who am I?” he asked the livid human

 

Esme glared at him, too angry to spit out an answer.

 

“Other vampires refer to me as Dīs Pater,” Dr Cullen explained in his most infuriatingly calm tone after it was clear no response was coming. “That’s my title. But my name.”

 

He shrugged languidly.

 

“Take your pick,” he chuckled darkly. “Death is my affinity. I am Hades, I am Pluto. The _devil,_ you could say since I seem to make such bad things happen.”

 

Esme shook her head.

 

“You are a… _doctor_ for Christ’s sake!” she said slowly and shakily, eyes blazing. “You _operate_ on people!”

 

“I do,” Carlisle nodded sagely.

 

“You _save_ people!”

 

“I try.”

 

He let out a long sigh.

 

“I try to save people,” he continued with a softness that infuriated Esme further. “But sometimes they cannot be saved. I feel like I _can_ save you, Esme, by insisting we stay away from each other. That…”

 

He gestured to the mess of death.

 

“Was my encouraging you to stay far away from me,” he said. “Because I don’t know if I’ll be able to return the favour.”

 

“Am I really _that_ different to other people?” Esme asked in an ashy voice.

 

“Yes, more than you could ever know,” the doctor murmured.

 

Esme squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment.

 

“Carlisle, you know,” she began shakily, clutching the duffel bag very tight. “I just wanted to say….About last night…”

 

“This isn’t about not being able to have sex with you, Esme!” Carlisle snapped, hurt also by the pain he could feel emanating from the woman he loved. “Yes, it would have been a nice evening…”

 

He laughed harshly.

 

“But you really aren’t my only option.”

 

“Who _are_ your other options, then?” Esme challenged him.

 

“Anyone and everyone,” Carlisle said bitterly, arms spread wide. “Vampire, human. Male, female. Practically anyone I want.”

 

“And who _have_ you wanted, out of curiosity?” Esme asked, folding her arms and forcing her gaze from the poor fish.

 

“Should I start with the most recent and work backwards?” Carlisle said with an arrogant shrug. “In that case, take a seat.”

 

“Yes, if you could.”

 

“Well,” he began, weighing the metaphorical knife in his hand - the one he was about to plunge into Esme’s beautiful chest. “On my flight to Italy two weeks ago, I met-”

 

“Wait _excuse_ me?” Esme spluttered. “Italy? _That_ recently?”

 

“We weren’t together then,” Carlisle reminded her briskly, feeling guilt claw it’s way up his skin like an army of spiders.

 

“We were damn close!” Esme shouted indignantly.

 

She was reeling.

 

How had she been so _stupid._ Despite all she had been through, the doubt in herself, the hate for herself, Esme had been idiotic enough to entertain the notion that Carlisle actually liked her.

 

What an _imbecile._

 

“Why…?” she breathed, looking at the man with new eyes and realising that Rosalie’s throw-away comment about his promiscuousness had not been baseless.

 

He sneered.

 

“Amusement. Distraction,” he shrugged carelessly. “The women, they mean little to me.”

 

“How can you _think_ like that?” Esme demanded, trying to make this information fit the man she kn- _thought_ she knew.

 

Yes, why indeed? Why could he just walk away after sharing himself so intimately with another person, having them share themselves so intimately with him?

 

“Because it’s always been you, Esme,” Carlisle whispered.

 

She looked taken aback.

 

_“What?”_

 

Carlisle took a deep breath to attempt to explain something he himself barely understood.

 

“Look, even as a human I was becoming this…thing, this monster,” he said gruffly. “But I wasn’t always so…overcome with it. I used to be, believe it or not, somewhat normal.”

 

He looked down to where he had been unconsciously been kneading his fist with his other hand.

 

“What happened?” Esme wondered.

 

“What _happened_ was in 1911 I treated an Ohio farm girl with a broken leg. She’d just turned sixteen,” he said in a whisper, a very strange expression on his face. “She changed me, because before that day, I had never felt true temptation, never felt the pull to another person so strongly.”

 

Carlisle darted forwards to stare Esme deep in the eye, hoping she could see the passion he had for her.

 

“She was my obsession,” he said hoarsely, drinking in every plane of her damning face while she listened. “She consumed me, body, mind and soul and her _blood_ …I had never smelt anything so…deep, so irresistible and so innocent.”

 

After a shuddering breath, with eyes blazing, Carlisle reached the punchline.

 

“She was my singer,” he informed the girl’s modern counterpart. “And her name...was Esme Anne Platt.”

 

Esme Swan gasped ever so slightly.

 

“Esme…” he repeated tenderly, reverently, as he gazed again upon her beautiful face, a face diving through an arc of expressions as the owner processed this, finally settling on one formed with more bitterness that Carlisle imagined that face could hold. 

 

Clearly his revelation had not had the desired effect upon his beloved.

 

“You _bastard,_ Carlisle!” Esme shouted, and the vampire almost jumped. “F-for the first time I can remember I felt loved and I felt like I wasn’t even trying! Didn’t you feel the _same?”_

 

“Yes, Esme! Yes!” Carlisle said emphatically, darting forwards to offer a hand that Esme refused.

 

“But you didn’t love me, you loved this girl,” she continued, enraged. “…This _kid,_ a hundred years ago? And I’m just some kind of replacement because we happen to _share the same unusual name?”_

 

“No, no, no, Esme. You’ve misunderstood,” Carlisle said in a rush. “She _was_ you. You are the _same person.”_

 

“Obviously I’m not!” Esme burst. “How could I be?”

 

“You said you believe in reincarnation…” Carlisle said, almost accusingly.

 

“Yes, as a _concept!”_ Esme laughed manically. “But not _specifically me!”_

 

Esme tuned on her heal and buried her face in her hand, then swung around to face Carlisle again.

 

“You mean, everything you’ve said to me about…loving me,” Esme choked with tears blurring her vision. “Is what you wish you said to _her?”_

 

“Yes,” Carlisle answered truthfully, too panicked by the situation to realise how Esme would take that affirmation.

 

Esme’s breath caught in her chest.

 

“Look, Carlisle, I think we should stop,” she said croakily though her tears. “I don’t think we should see each other any more.”

 

“That was the…regretful conclusion I drew also,” the vampire whispered. “Please…please would you permit me to drive you home, for the sake of appearances and for my own peace of mind.”

 

“Fuck your peace of mind,” Esme snapped.

 

Carlisle was shocked, but smelt her pain and understood that he had just badly wounded her.

 

And for that he was furious with himself. Unfortunately, that anger burst outwards.

 

“Get. In. The car,” he spat through gritted teeth.

 

“I’d rather you ripped me to _bits!”_ Esme screamed back, curls flying madly out of her ponytail in her fury. “If that’s what you _so_ want to do to everyone!”

 

“Are you going to _walk?”_ Carlisle asked her with the very specific note of arrogant sarcasm that women never respond well to.

 

“I am _not_ getting in that car!” she shouted tearfully, brimming with a cauldronful of emotions - only and handful of which she could identify.

 

Carlisle was at a loss to what to say.

 

And that angered him further.

 

“Do you want me to _put_ you in the car?” Carlisle called after her, feeling Esme’s rage inside himself as well as his own as she paced an angry lap around the rock pools.

 

“I already have a ride!” she declared.

 

“What?” Carlisle sighed, feeling suddenly impossibly tired. “Your car is miles away, Esme.”

 

“No,” she said quietly, eyes brimming with…guilt? “I called the wolves before we headed out. They’re coming to pick me up. I texted them in the car. They know where we are.”

 

Carlisle froze.

 

“W-why would you-”

 

“Because despite what you seem to think, I am not a complete idiot, and I do know better than to stay with someone who is going to cause me harm,” Esme hissed, eyes narrowed to slits and for the first time he’d ever seen them, with no hint of kindness whatsoever. “Especially one who kills _poor_ little fish to prove that point!”

 

“I-I just…just needed you to u-understand what I-”

 

“Oh, I _understand_ alright!” Esme snarled. “Before you _interrupted_ me, I was _going_ to say that I can’t do this, after what happened. I can’t go through it all again.”

 

 _“Esme…”_ Carlisle pleaded.

 

“You wanted to break up with me, yes?” she said briskly, as though Carlisle were a business annoyance, not a vampire having his heart broken for the last time it could take. “Well, I decided to put the ball in the other court. We’re done. We were done since yesterday.”

 

“You already made up your mind?” Carlisle asked her in a tiny voice, never having realised how fierce she was before.

 

She almost scared him.

 

“…Before…”

 

He gestured helplessly to the bucket.

 

“Yes, I did,” Esme said flatly. “I called Billy before I went to sleep and made the decision with him, knowing that way Alice wouldn’t know. And now I am going to La Push and you are not going to follow me.”

 

“Esme, please,” the Elephant Boy whispered desperately, the cold stab of rejection threatening to scorch him alive. “I can change-”

 

“But you _can’t_ change, Carlisle,” she said, a little softer. "And  _I_ need to see my niece grow up. I need my family. I need my memories. I need animals and sunlight. I need…people. Humanity. I need to be _human.”_

 

“So…so we’re…y-you agree we should…”

 

Esme gave Carlisle a thin-lipped smile of sympathy.

 

“It was a nice _week,_ Carlisle,” she said, focusing every last shred of her consciousness on anger, rather than the barrage of sympathy she was at risk of giving in to. “But yes, this is the end.”

 

“Esme,” Carlisle said, panic on his face. “If there is anything I can do…”

 

Then, Carlisle stiffened at something that Esme couldn’t detect. She watched his eyes dart around a little before with a thundering, the forest suddenly came alive and out of the trees came the Quilliute wolves.

 

They were afraid, that was the first thing Esme noticed, scared of Dīs Pater. However, one by one the young warriors approached and Esme was struck by how brave they were, and how much of a risk they were taking by coming here. For _her._

 

But Carlisle looked in no fit state to be fighting a pack of wolves.

 

With agony in his face, Esme watched him throw his beautiful hands up in surrender, an action that was also for her benefit.

 

“I won’t hurt you,” Carlisle said loudly. “On the condition that you keep Esme safe.”

 

Even Esme heard the sob in his chest that followed this.

 

“Even from me,” he choked.

 

Not letting his eyes leave the threat for a second, the russet wolf bent its head for Esme to climb up, which she did after snatching the bucket of fish.

 

“Where are you taking them?” Carlisle called to her.

 

“To bury them,” she said flatly, without looking at him.

 

Carlisle squeezed his eyes shut as the mistake he was making, and all the mistakes he _had_ made, crashed down on him.

 

“That’s _my bucket,_ you know!” he called crossly, something he regretted immediately for how pathetic it made him sound.

 

But how could he be anything else?

 

She was leaving him. _Esme_ was _leaving_ him.

 

She didn’t…she didn’t _want_ him.

 

 _Be careful what you pray for, boy,_ his father’s voice boomed. _The Lord may deliver just that._

 

As the wolves bounded away at full speed, Carlisle fell to his knees.

 


	35. Hades And Persephone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the introduction to another theme in the story which won't be too major, but still makes some sense when applied to the ending.
> 
> (Yes, the ending's skeleton has now been written - very excited here!)
> 
> Enjoy...

****_It’s the winter now and it’s been six months since the Cullens left town._

 

_Six exactly, actually, but Esme couldn’t have told you that. Time has lost meaning._ **_Everything_ ** _has lost meaning._

 

_It’s just her. A burden on Charlie and Renée and their little baby. A dark presence._

 

_She can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t talk to anyone about it. Because she has to protect Carlisle._

 

_But Esme made a mistake, tore out her soul for real when she left him._

 

_Charlie is furious, but he was right all along. He broke her._

 

_Whatever the doctor did to his sister that day threw Esme over the edge. Big time._

 

_But she wants to go over the edge, wants it bad._

 

_She’s numb as she walks to the edge of the La Push cliffs in the storm. She knows people cliff dive here recreationally, but not on days like this. On days like this you die._

 

_She hesitates for only a second before she lets herself fall._

 

_There’s nothing to consider anymore, and, in fact, taking her life like this feels fairly familiar. It feels like coming home._

 

_Soon, without more than a pitiful reflexive struggle against the waves, Esme’s dead._

 

_And somehow, all the way in Ithaca, Carlisle knows._

 

_He feels the agony of what had been mangled of out shape inside him snap and he’s alone. So completely alone._

 

_He has to follow her into whatever afterlife there is for the two of them. If there’s a remote chance he can find her, he’ll do it._

 

_Wrenching himself from the rest of the Cullens, the doctor goes to Italy to beg for the one mercy his family would never grant him._

 

_They refuse, leaving him to wander the Earth alone for eternity, tortured without end by the lack of the most precious thing that ever existed._

 

_He begs for an end, he -_

 

“Oh for pity’s _sake,_ Carlisle!” shouted Alice shrilly as her vision faded, leaving her once again in the car.

 

“What?” asked Rosalie, missing Edward’s horrified expression.

 

“We can’t leave!” squealed Alice, pressing her hands to her cheeks in horror. “We….Oh the _idiot._ Emmett! Stop the car, I’m getting out!”

 

“Might join you!” Emmett grunted, frustrated, as the engine of Edward’s Volvo whined under the abuse of the enormous vampire.

 

Rose smirked.

 

“I think you might have to change gear, babe,” she informed him casually.

 

Edward cringed as his engine started to smell unhealthy before turning, concerned, back to Alice.

 

“Alice, how soon does Carlisle intend to-”

 

“Fucking…. _shit!”_ Emmett interrupted with a roar as he fought with the shift, the gears crunching below him. “This is… _agh!_ This is such a _woman’s car!_ I’m….gonna… _fucking_ …destroy-”

 

“Mind my gearbox!” Edward gasped.

 

“Don’t just push, Emmett,” Bella said with a barely concealed smirk.

 

“Have you put the clutch down?” Rosalie added sweetly, sharing a rare smile with her newest sister.

 

“Yes!” Emmett insisted. “Fucking Swedish car! I want _my_ car back!”

 

“Well you did crash it…” Edward reminded him in his musical voice. “So…”

 

“Yes, yes,” Emmett said stuffily, in his impression of Carlisle’s voice whilst imitating one of his more dismissive hand gestures.

 

 _“Please_ let me drive,” Edward implored.

 

“Not a chance,” Emmett said piously. _“I_ won the thumb war!”

 

“You always win thumb wars!” Edward burst indignantly. “And, I mean, just _look_ at those thumbs! Are those even _thumbs?_ Or _toes?”_

 

“Of course they’re…Hey! Little _shit!”_ Emmett boomed. “Course they’re fucking thumbs!”

 

“No, _Esme,”_ the tiniest vampire breathed, eyes wide with the horror of her vision as the argument raged on around her, Rosalie leaning forward to take a harsh fistful of Edward’s hair.

 

“Ew!” the blonde squealed. “Edward! How much _gel? Disgusting!”_

 

She wiped her messy hand not the underside of one of his seats.

 

“Alice,” said Bella calmly, who was the only one who had noticed the little girl lunge for the for the door handle. “Aren’t we going to see Jasp-”

 

“We’ll be late!” Alice shouted angrily as she exited the moving vehicle.

 

“She’s gone to reason with Carlisle”, Edward explained helpfully to the rest of the confused vampires. “And I still think I should drive…”

 

“Not a chance,” Rosalie huffed. “You drive like you have cataracts.”

 

Alice unfortunately missed that particular gem of an insult as she was already out of earshot, sprinting home and quickly smelling that Dr Cullen was still closeted in his study.

 

“Carlisle!” she called angrily and needlessly loudly as she barged her way into the room. “You have some _serious_ explaining to do, mister!”

 

“A-Alice…why aren’t you on your way to Alaska?” he asked nervously.

 

She folded her spindly arms.

 

“Because _Carlisle,_ your recent…change of heart has _changed_ things.”

 

The tiny vampire looked furious.

 

“So you’re _not_ going to try and win her back?” she cried before Carlisle could open him mouth to defend himself. “We _are_ moving?”

 

The doctor wrung his beautiful hands.

 

“We…It can never work out between us!” he burst. “It’s not healthy. And yes, you’re right, I’ll never get over it but it’s the kindest thing…”

 

Alice looked aghast.

 

“This isn’t just about you!” she shrieked.

 

Carlisle was taken aback. It was usually Rosalie who may occasionally speak to him like that but never little _Alice._

 

“Alice, I’m sorry if I-”

 

 _“THAT WAS MY MOTHER AND NOW YOU’VE SENT HER AWAY!”_ the girl roared.

 

Alice launched herself at Carlisle and started pounding him with her little fists.

 

“You’re just like him!” she choked, face puckered with a supernatural rage and the remembered mist of her human father. “He killed mother too and nobody believed me…”

 

Alice began to cry as she suddenly sagged, exhausted with sadness and the effort of hoping too hard for too long.

 

“Nobody believed me,” she whispered and allowed her father the respite from his battering he needed to scoop her gently off the floor where she’d fallen.

 

Carlisle cradled his tiny daughter to his chest.

 

“Esme and I are just too different,” he whispered, rocking Alice soothingly back and fourth. “She did what I wish I had been strong enough to do, which is walk away.”

 

“But she hurts herself, Carlisle…” Alice whispered, quiet as a hyperactive mouse. “When we’re gone she _dies!_ Don’t you _see!”_

 

“Then I promise to stop that from happening,” Carlisle said reassuringly though Alice felt his strong arms shake a little. “But to start with we need some time and space away from one another.”

 

“But we have to _stay,_ Carlisle, _stay!”_ she insisted frantically, clawing at his shirt.

 

He peered down at the tiny face.

 

“Alice? It’ll be alright, I promise,” the doctor whispered. “We won’t go if that’s a bad decision. I’ll let everyone have their say.”

 

“Nobody believed me, Carlisle!” she shivered, eyes unfocused with the past, rather than the future. “He…he killed mother and nobody believed me! They said I was mad and they put me in hospital, Carlisle and she _died!_ And now she’d going to die again because you won’t _believe_ me!”

 

“Alice, I believe you,” Carlisle said ardently to the shaking child. “I _always_ believe you, alright? And nobody is going to die, we can fix this.”

 

He pressed a kiss to the back of her tiny hand then heard the trooping of impatiently noiseless feet on the front hallway.

 

“Here come the others, I think,” Carlisle said, a small sigh in his voice, before the room was silently filled with curiosity.

 

“Family emergency,” Edward declared.

 

“Carlisle why?” Bella pleaded.

 

The coven leader huffed heavily.

 

“Why I decided-”

 

Alice cleared her throat with surprising aggression for a creature of her size.

 

“Or made, and may now be _reevaluating…”_ Carlisle corrected himself. “…The decision to leave?”

 

“We all know why we should move!” Rosalie hissed. “Because there’s a woman in this town having _nightmares_ about you!”

 

“Yes,” Carlisle agreed with a crack in his voice. “But there’s another reason still that it’s bad…that it’s _wrong_ for me to be around her.”

 

He walked slowly to his book shelf.

 

“Because…” he said as he scanned the shelves. “Of _this_ book…”

 

“Here we go,” Rosalie laughed sarcastically, face darkening further. “Oh! Let me guess! The _Bible.”_

 

Carlisle shook his gold-crowned head.

 

“No,” he corrected his eldest daughter. “The _Iliad._ The Greek Epic.”

 

 _The fuck?_ Rosalie mouthed before casting her eyes to the heavens for strength.

 

“See, I have always thought that we represent some of the main characters,” Carlisle continued, now more passionately.

 

His gaze rested on the first of his creations with awe.

 

“Apollo,” he said, shooting a proud smile to Edward. “The God of Music.”

 

He then turned to Bella, who looked down, embarrassed.

 

“Athena,” Carlisle grinned. “Goddess of Wisdom and Battle strategy.”

 

Next he darted forwards to ruffle Alice’s hair. 

 

“Cassandra, of course. And…Aphrodite,” he said, a little more haltingly as Rosalie artfully lifted a single eyebrow.

 

To his surprise, she smirked.

 

“I fancy myself more as a Helen of Troy,” she informed the group.

 

“Whossat?” Emmett asked, deep furrows in his brow, worried that this might be someone that Rosalie spoke of often and would be offended that he hadn’t heard of

 

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” Bella quoted proudly. “And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”

 

“Who’s topless?” the enormous vampire continued interestedly.

 

“Helen of Troy was the most beautiful woman in the world,” Rosalie said, with no little arrogance. “And the stories say that she started a huge war to escape her dickhead husband or something like that, you know, the Trojan War.”

 

“What?” Emmett asked, looking hurt and worrying whether Rosalie’s character choice had been pointed.

 

“Not _you,_ idiot,” Rosalie sniggered lovingly, nudging her enormous husband’s arm and planting a kiss on his cheek. 

 

“Oh, good,” Emmett said, face clearing. “Who would _I_ be, then?”

 

“Perhaps Achilles, or Hector,” Carlisle said after a moment’s deliberation. “One the warriors, like Jasper, I’d say.”

 

“What about Loci, the trickster?” Emmett asked excitedly.

 

“Well that’s Norse Mythology…” the doctor said slowly. “And I’m not sure if you’re really…”

 

Carlisle held his hands out apologetically.

 

“Edward, was he about to say ‘smart enough?’” Emmett asked his brother who was smirking beside him.

 

“No, he was going to use the word ‘cunning’,” Edward told him.

 

“Alright then!” the enormous vampire burst defensively, turning back to his father. “Who are _you_ if you’re so smart?”

 

Carlisle sighed and looked suddenly extremely old and weary.

 

“Owing to my ability, my affinity for the dead,” he began slowly. “Unquestionably…Hades…”

 

He dropped his gaze to the floor.

 

“Which makes Esme…”

 

“Oh,” Edward said flatly, Carlisle’s reasoning tumbling from his thoughts.

 

“Her reaction to seeing my…ability used for real absolutely confirmed that,” Carlisle said in a hoarse voice. “She couldn’t even have been called angry, it was beyond anger, it was like I was hurting her.”

 

“Persephone…” Edward whispered in wonder.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Who…who is that?” Emmett demanded, looking confused. “You dating some other chick now?”

 

“Emmett…haven’t you read the Iliad?” Carlisle asked in a sigh, looking a little hurt. “I bought that for you for Christmas in 1962, you told me you read it.”

 

“Er…I…I _skimmed_ it,” Emmett said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly now he’d been found out. “And…studied the…um…diagrams.”

 

Carlisle tutted a little, but melted under Emmett’s best puppy-dog eyes and began the necessary explanation. It _was_ a very long book to expect Emmett to read, after all.

 

“Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, goddess of fertility,” he told the group. “Life, if you will. Persephone shared this power and was extremely beautiful. Many of the gods were infatuated with her though she turned them all down.”

 

His hands balled into fists.

 

“Until one day,” Carlisle continued shakily. “Hades abducted Persephone and spirited her away to the underworld, forbidding her to return to the Earth, whereupon her mother was so heartbroken that famine broke out and many perished as the world literally _withered.”_

 

He looked brokenly out of the window.

 

“Hades was so drawn to Persephone,” the doctor whispered. “And so powerful that he took her without consent, and forced her to live in literal hell. She was miserable and without her…well, the world _died.”_

 

The silence left in the wake of Carlisle’s story was interrupted by Rosalie’s wind-chime laugh.

 

“I’m…I’m sorry… _Hades_ and _Persephone?”_ she asked, laugher suddenly evaporating to leave her marble face furious. “…How… _narcissistic_ are you?”

 

“Rosalie, you cannot deny this is more than coincidence!” Carlisle barked, accumulated anger bursting out, as it typically did, at his second creation.

 

“This is ridiculous!” she spluttered. “I mean _really?_ Even for you that’s…a stretch.”

 

“But the Iliad teaches us,” Carlisle argued earnestly. “That Hades and Persephone-”

 

“The Iliad also says that Persephone is in love with Aphrodite’s kid!” Rosalie exploded, interrupting her father. “Except Aphrodite is too, so her lover, Eros, changes the kid into a fucking _tree_ or something!”

 

“Well,” Bella began reasonably. _“I_ see that as a _representation_ of-”

 

“But _he_ takes it literally!” Rosalie laughed incredulously, throwing an arm in Carlisle’s direction. “He thinks it all really happened!”

 

She rounded on the man who was beginning to look a little terrifying. 

 

Rosalie, however, was not terrified.

 

“If you can’t deal with something, Carlisle, you turn to a book,” she said in an even voice, eyes burning. “You turn to religion. Which is fine. We all have baggage, and maybe that’s how a lonely neglected little kid got through his life.”

 

She took a step forward.

 

“But now you’re not a kid, Carlisle,” she hissed. “And your decisions can _really_ hurt people. Can you remember a time when you made a _bad decision?”_

 

The woman, frozen forever at eighteen, glared at her creator. Her perfect immortal body, and her perfectly accusing eyes, reminding Carlisle every day of his mistakes.

 

“Rosalie, not everything is about you!” he snapped. “Perhaps it is not _me_ that is the narcissist here and-”

 

“Head in the game, Carlisle!” Rosalie screamed. “Moses did not part any sea! _Nobody_ in Ancient Greece turned other people into trees and _you_ are not a _god!_ For the last time! This is _always_ what it boils down to!”

 

“I have never claimed to be God,” Carlisle shot back, shaking with anger.

 

“But you have such a special understanding of the Almighty, don’t you?” Rosalie sneered. “Yet when has He _ever_ helped you? 

 

“Rosalie! Listen to me! I-”

 

“Nobody should be allowed to play with other people’s lives!” she spat. “Not Esme Swan’s, and not mine!”

 

There was a deferring silence as the two vampires stared each other down.

 

“Well, if some kid flirted with you I’d turn him into a fucking tree too!” Emmett offered helpfully. “Then throw gasoline on it and torch the thing!”

 

Rosalie closed her eyes in thanks for her husband’s blissful ignorance and good nature.

 

“That’s why I love you, babe,” she smiled gratefully.

 

“Language,” Carlisle snapped, without looking at Emmett, rather still at his perfect bride.

 

“But we can’t leave!” Alice cried, remembering her own quarrel with their leader. “Do you understand? It doesn’t matter who Esme is if she dies!”

 

“She’ll die if we stay. We’re leaving,” Rosalie said with her arms folded with certainty.

 

“I agree with Rose,” Emmett said loyally, nodding fiercely behind her.

 

“I agree with Alice,” Bella said slyly, and fixed Edward with a very hard stare.

 

“We have to go,” Carlisle told them with a sad nod. “And Jasper would absolutely agree with me.”

 

“Huh!” Alice said, and screwed up her face very tight. “No, he agrees with me, actually.”

 

“Then three to stay, three to leave,” Carlisle said tersely. “Which means, Edward, you have the deciding vote.”

 

“Oh-ho no you don’t,” Rosalie growled, as Bella and her mate made eye contact again. “Edward for _God’s_ sake.”

 

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” Carlisle reprimanded her, though she paid him no notice, instead snarled in frustration at the smile that stretched across Edward’s face - the one he wore when he knew he was doing something she hated.

 

“We’re staying,” he said at last after a torturous pause for Rosalie’s benefit.

 

She hissed in frustration and flipped her rippling hair over her shoulder.

 

“It isn’t fair to stay, and you all know it!” she growled. _“Apollo!_ Hah! Well, he was a serial rapist and a piece of _shit,_ allegedly, so perhaps there is some truth in that book after all. Come on, Emmett, we’re leaving.”

 

“As am I,” Carlisle muttered darkly, vanishing to dress for his shift with a glower on his face.

 

“Bella, you look troubled,” Edward said as, with a gust of sweet wind, it was just his wife and a beaming Alice in his company.

 

“He didn’t mention the second part of the story,” she answered him with a frown.

 

“And what’s that?” Alice chirruped, texting a clueless Jasper the good news.

 

“The part where Hades tricks her back.”

 

 

***

 

 

_“Esme?”_

 

Esme’s first thought was that she was at work. She was in a hospital, at least, and Carlisle was there.

 

Yes, she must be at work.

 

“Carlisle? Is that you?” she whispered.

 

And then there he was all of a sudden, glittering like powdered glass under the florescent strip lights.

 

Esme frowned. 

 

That wasn’t right…was it?

 

Then, the doctor smiled and Esme forgot to care about what ought to be happening as each perfectly while and even tooth glinted at her, as if each of them were giving her its own little wink.

 

“Carlisle…” she said, a little haltingly, as something told he she wasn’t supposed to address him in such informal terms.

 

Odd, since he had blurred forwards to take her in his arms and kiss her fiercely.

 

“Carlisle!” she gasped, laughing.

 

“Come with me, Esme,” the doctor beamed, looking very young and and very hopeful, with both of his hands covering one of hers. “We can be happy together.”

 

“Go…go where?” Esme wondered, seeing only other, empty beds around her.

 

Her question was answered as the hospital seemingly shook itself to pieces before her eyes. 

 

…Or maybe it had just blown away in the wind that was shrieking its was across the cliffs.

 

Recognising the bleak setting of her regular doom, Esme felt betrayed and tears prickled in her eyes.

 

“Carlisle, why?” she choked. “Why do you always bring me here? It _scares_ me!”

 

 _“You_ bring yourself here, Esme,” he told her, looking surprised. “You _want_ to be here.”

 

She shook her head slowly.

 

“Esme…I’m not lying…” the even smile tried to reassure her. “Now jump. And we can be together…”

 

“We’re together up here, though!” Esme said frantically, trying to stop Carlisle from walking them both closer and closer to the sheer drop below. “This is….this is nice, right?”

 

At this, Carlisle actually laughed.

 

Or…hang on…

 

 _That_ wasn’t Carlisle’s laugh…

 

“Wait… _You’re_ not Carlisle!” Esme said accusingly, staring into her captor’s face.

 

Now she paid attention, she saw that, as familiar as the man was, he wasn’t her love.

 

 _“Now_ you’re starting to remember…” the man chuckled, and Esme gasped as he let the glamour fall away.

 

His skin was as dark as the doctor’s was pale and his eyes stood out a vivid purple against his midnight skin.

 

“R-remember what?” Esme stammered.

 

The man let her go and chuckled, a rich, sleepy velvet melody that was possibly the most soothing sound Esme had ever heard.

 

“After what you were prepared to do…” the man laughed incredulously in an accent dipped with the Caribbean. “For what you _did_ for the sake of that man…”

 

He shook his head in wonder.

 

“And yet…well…”

 

He shrugged.

 

“I suppose our plan worked,” he finished with a look of satisfaction on his face.

 

 _“What plan?”_ Esme begged of him.

 

“I can’t tell you,” the man said softly but with a spice of mischief as he tapped the side of his nose. “That was part of our deal.”

 

“Our _what?”_ Esme spluttered, voice rising. “I don’t _know_ you!”

 

“Everyone knows me!” the man declared, holding his arms wide. “Though few remember me. Sad, really…”

 

“I _never_ made any deal with you!” Esme breathed frantically, crying in her frustration.

 

“No, other Esme did,” the man said thoughtfully.

 

This brought her up short.

 

“Esme…Platt?” she wondered, feeling an odd mix of dread and curiosity pouring through her.

 

“The very same,” her captor chuckled fondly. “Or should I say, the very same as _you.”_

 

“So Carlisle-”

 

“Was not lying to you,” the man said quickly. “You knew one another in a different life.”

 

“But I can’t remember that!” Esme wept. “And I don’t remember this deal! _How_ am I expected to-”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” the man said placatingly holding out his hands, seeing that it had all been a little too much. “You’ve already done your part.”

 

He laughed merrily.

 

“Now I’m trying to follow through on mine,” he continued with a fond smile. “Which would be a lot easier if you were both a little more selfish.”

 

“Why would you help me?” Esme demanded, feeling a little disarmed.

 

“Because, Esme Platt, Esme Swan,” the man said, leaning down to Esme’s height. “Once upon a time, you carried out an act of great kindness…”

 

He looked thoughtful.

 

“And a time long before that, another person, a pastor’s son carried out an act of kind greatness,” he whispered. “And I realised, knowing you both so intimately, that you were exactly what each other needed.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say!” Esme burst, frustrated.

 

“You don’t need to I…I digress,” the man apologised. “Plus, it is an annoying habit of mine to speak in riddles. But if I didn’t, everyone would know everything, would they not?…”

 

He shrugged.

 

“So…Carlisle and I…” Esme attempted again. “We’re…soulmates?”

 

“Yes…and no,” the man said after a moment of peaceful thought. “You are both exactly alike…yet exactly different. It’s a conundrum.”

 

The man suddenly became more alert and his dreamy tone changed into something more urgent.

 

“But there’s trouble coming,” Esme’s guest warned. “Soon. And it would be best to face it side-by-side, in whatever capacity your stubborn, conscientious little selves can manage.”

 

He beamed dotingly, and stroked a finger down Esme’s cheek, which rather than making her recoil, felt more like an embrace from a favourite grandparent.

 

“Esme…talk to him,” he whispered in her ear.

 

“I-” Esme began but her speech became a shriek of horror as the man’s grip suddenly faltered and he sent her tumbling into the cold nothingness below.

 

“Whoopsies!” she heard him say in a jolly voice over the roaring of the wind and her own screaming.

 

The fall seemed longer than normal though she was woken before she hit the ground by a light snapping on, leaving her in an unfamiliar room.

 

“Billy!” Esme gasped, seeing the face by her bedside in the room Jacob had offered her for the duration of her stay. “What…What’s going on?”

 

“Esme, you were having a nightmare…” he replied, looking spooked. “Are you alright? Esme, answer me!”

 

Esme fixed him with wild eyes, remembering a hospital…falling…and Carlisle.

 

And her instruction.

 

“I…I have to talk to Carlisle!” she garbled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mysterious man in Esme's dream is supposed to be Laurent. Except he only resembles him, because he's actually another character (the Greek thing again, gah!)
> 
> Anyway, keep reading! All will become clear!


	36. Kate's Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> I had SO much fun writing this chapter (and I hope you have fun reading it!).
> 
> …Er, yeah. 
> 
> But so much fun that maybe I got a little carried away, so I just wanted to say that I am not trying to insult anyone here, or be homophobic, this is all in the name of comedy.
> 
> Plus, there are some little tit-bits of plot here which are fairly subtle but important so eyes peeled, people! 
> 
> I wanted to change the Denali clan a little because in the books I found the three "sisters" quite same-y and I thought there was so much potential for them to be the Cullen kids’ crazy aunts, so here we go…
> 
> And enjoy…

Esme’s heart pounded as she pulled open the office door, expecting to see that distinctive glint of gold as Carlisle turned to face her and that new look of utter betrayal and hopelessness she had caught a glimpse of as she had been driven away from him.

 

However, all that remained of Carlisle was his lingering scent which made her chest ache with its sweetness.

 

 _Working nights and will be taking some time off this week - check staff rota,_ read the note he had left on her keyboard by means of explanation.

 

The briefness and coldness of the note stung Esme before she remembered that she had completely and absolutely broken his heart.

 

Although, had Jasper or Edward been present, they would have known how much is cost her, too. 

 

Except Jasper was in Alaska for killing teenagers and the entire family was fucked.

 

 _They need a mother,_ Esme thought before she could stop herself.

 

Without Carlisle, (and Esme had almost forgotten what it was like to work without him), the day no longer felt like a very long date, rather dragged on in globules of headachy time and, by the end, Esme was pining for the man’s presence.

 

“Goddammit,” Esme whispered and mashed her forehead into her palms.

 

_Carlisle’s smile._

 

_Carlisle laughing._

 

_Carlisle joking with his children._

 

_The feel of his hand on hers as he helped her drink the hot chocolate he had bought her._

 

_The look on his face after he’d kissed her._

 

_His hands on her waist as he sang to her._

 

“Agh!” Esme hissed in a mad half-chuckle, alone in the office for the seventh hour. “Alright, _alright!_ I _get_ it!”

 

Carefully picking up the note from where she had placed it earlier, instead of shredding it, Esme dropped it guiltily in her pocket.

 

As she did so, she felt a warmth in her stomach and the anxiety of the past few days eased off somewhat.

 

This was alright. She’d go to the house, apologise, and they could work something out.

 

Decision made and heart pounding because of it, Esme found herself half-running to her car at the end of the day, but faltered when an icy blonde smile appeared between herself and the destination.

 

The smile became considerably stiffer as Rosalie game Esme one of her customary appraising glances.

 

“Oh you’re _not,”_ she said disbelievingly.

 

“Not…what?” Esme asked nervously.

 

“You’re thinking about going _back_ to him, aren’t you?” Rosalie said, frowning deeply.

 

“I…isn’t Edward the mindreader?” Esme said in deflection, watching the blonde young woman’s face spasm with frustration.

 

“Yes, and Alice is the almighty prophet,” she said with her usual precision. “And yet I _know.”_

 

Rosalie sighed, and clicked forwards on her scandalously high heels.

 

“Esme, it’s difficult,” she said with a softness few ever heard. “And I know that but please-”

 

“You’re not going to hypnotise me, are you?” Esme interrupted, struck by horrible inspiration as the vampire stalked closer.

 

“No. I actually hate doing it,” Rosalie answered immediately. “I don’t like taking people’s free will away from them, because I know, and _you_ know, how soul-destroying it can be.”

 

Rosalie’s face crumpled and she looked suddenly the mere eighteen years she posed as.

 

 _“Please,_ Esme,” she whispered.

 

_The fish…the fish boiling in their own blood._

 

_The air-conditioning fan blurring against the ceiling in Carlisle’s bedroom as she writhed for air under his iron grip._

 

_Running through the forest…and running…and running…_

 

_The hate in his eyes._

 

_Tightness in her chest._

 

“Esme?” came Rosalie’s voice through the choking cloud of horror clotting in Esme’s lungs. “Hey! Human! It’s alright!”

 

Esme smelt strawberries as she felt her head being forced between her knees.

 

“Shhh, okay, now…Don’t pass out on me,” the voice continued. “Just…take some deep breaths.”

 

“Rose, I don’t know what to do,” Esme choked.

 

“Er…neither,” Rosalie said lightly, clinically manoeuvring Esme into her car by the very tips of her manicured fingers. “How about I drive you to the La Push boundary and I can be very rude about your car and take your mind off things? Yeah?”

 

After Esme’s half-nod of approval, they drove in silence, aside from Rosalie’s occasional comment about the state of Esme’s engine and by the time they were halfway there, Esme’s heart rate had slowed and her breathing softened.

 

When they pulled over just outside the reservation, Rosalie handed Esme the bag she’d been holding.

 

“Don’t panic, this is from me, not Carlisle,” she said, as Esme cautiously pawed through the tissue paper inside. “He owed you an outfit and a new pair of shoes.”

 

“Rose,” Esme said pleadingly as the scent of obscenely expensive leather filled the car. “I can’t accept-”

 

“Don’t say another word,” Rosalie scolded her. “It’s money well spent and it won’t be missed.”

 

Esme looked down at the bag which symbolised somehow the termination of some kind of unspoken contract.

 

The scores were settled.

 

“I hope everything goes well for you in the future,” Esme whispered, realising this might well be the last time she saw any of Carlisle’s children which seemed to drop the iron back into her chest with the horror of it.

 

“You too,” Rosalie said quietly before, to the woman's astonishment, Esme was given a very cold, very stiff but rather undeniable hug. “Thank you for making the right choice for us all, I know it cost you a lot more than this…”

 

She gestured to the bag in Esme’s hands and, before the human had time to blink, she was gone.

 

“Give my best to Emmett, will you?” Esme whispered to the empty air, hoping Rosalie heard.

 

 

 

***

 

 

Upon Rosalie’s arrival to the house, Emmett accepted Esme's good wishes with a sad nod, then turned his attention back to the drone of the lawn mower.

 

He pursed his lips.

 

“He’s doing the stripes?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” Bella said, frowning. “And he’s wearing the salmon-pink man-cardigan.”

 

“Oh he’s _not,”_ Rosalie said, narrowing her eyes.

 

Her enormous husband hissed in a breath.

 

Where mowing his lawn may be a perfectly normal thing for a doctor to do in his time off, in the Cullen household it signalled real trouble.

 

“This is worse than I thought…” Emmett said darkly, starting to count Carlisle’s sins off his fingers. “He’s washed the car. He’s played a game of golf-”

 

“Alone, which is a bit sad,” Rosalie added.

 

“Now he’s mowing the lawn,” Emmett continued. “What’s next? Family _baseball?”_

 

Right at that moment, the phone rang and Alice tearfully declared that that would have been Esme’s idea if _someone_ hadn’t _scared her away_ for which she held Rosalie and Carlisle himself equally responsible.

 

The little vampire, (currently all the way in Alaska but more than willing to join in any given conversation back home), then hung up with venom and Carlisle placed the lawnmower neatly back in the bushes where he had found it before shuffling his way towards his onlookers.

 

“Hello Mr Middle-class,” Rosalie greeted him with her usual coolness. “What in God’s name has got into you?”

 

“Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Rosalie,” Carlisle requested sagely.

 

“You do!” Rosalie shot back with indignation.

 

“Well, I’ve stopped,” he told her calmly.

 

“Cool,” she laughed sarcastically. “Good to know…”

 

“How long will you be gone?” Edward asked before Carlisle could speak, plucking the man's intentions straight from the source.

 

“Not long, I just-”

 

“Where are you going?” Emmett demanded.

 

“I’m running up to Denali,” Carlisle answered.

 

“To see Alice and Jasper?” the giant surmised.

 

“Yes, and I….thought I ought to be there. It’s July twenty-third two days from now.”

 

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Emmett breathed, wide-eyed.

 

“Language…”

 

“Well, give our love to the gang,” Edward bade him.

 

“Oh, and call first if you don’t want to walk in on anything,” Rosalie said seriously.

 

“Good point,” Carlisle allowed.

 

“Yeah, Edward’s still in therapy,” Emmett chuckled.

 

“I just…didn’t know…women did…” Edward began as he struggled for words. “…What…what they were doing…”

 

“If anyone wants to come with me they’re welcome…” Carlisle said hopefully, cutting off a conversation that led only to trouble.

 

“Nah, we’re good here,” Emmett said cheerily.

 

“It's called Skype,” Rosalie said breezily before stalking away.

 

“Nobody?” Carlisle asked, shooting Bella a hopeful glance, though she shook her head. “Right then. In which case I’ll see you in a few days.”

 

It wasn’t long before Carlisle felt the thrill of cold water as he dived into the ocean and began his lengthy swim northwards past Canada.

 

After less time than it would have taken most vampires, Carlisle was pulling himself out of the pleasantly freezing water somewhere close to the Canadian-Alaskan border where he was predictably met by a very tiny vampire wearing an enormous grin and clutching a fluffy towel about the same size she was.

 

“Carlisle!” she squealed, throwing herself into his soaking arms. “You _came!”_

 

“Hello, Allie,” he grinned. “This is very nice and…”

 

He smiled wider as he caught sighed of his newest but oldest son’s battle-ravaged face which was wearing a bigger smile than the doctor could have hoped for after the guilt he had suffered.

 

“Jasper,” Carlisle said, giving the young man a rare embrace. “How are you?”

 

“A little better, thank you,” he answered. “And Tanya leant us her truck to drive you the rest of the way. Irina offered us the BMW but ah admit ah was too nervous of scratching it.”

 

Carlisle laughed.

 

“I know what you mean. I feel like a gesture like that is designed to test one’s suitability as an acquaintance.”

 

Japser laughed.

 

“Ah know exactly what you mean…”

 

After bundling the soaking-wet Carlisle into the trailer to attempt to dry him out a little, the drive was filled with Alice’s unrelenting chatter and Jasper’s peaceful silence.

 

As soon as the garage came into view, Alice’s excitement began to bubble over and Jasper was wrenched away from the wheel as soon as the tyres ground to a halt.

 

“We’re just off to the lake, see you later!” she chirruped before the two of them dived into the undergrowth.

 

Enjoying the new silence, Carlisle walked up to the front door of the house.

 

The home of the Denali clan looked very much like a log cabin which had been injected with some kind of alien growth-serum and had become both very large and very elegant. Above the criss-cross of balconies stood one single Disney-esque turreted tower, tiled in gold leaf. On the other side of the property was a sheer drop into one of the valleys below and the castle clung desperately but artistically to the cliff with steel girders, boasting between them cavernous rooms made only of glass.

 

Altogether, the palace was, however, less like an elven city or somewhere to hold flower shows in the summer months but more like somewhere the UN might meet, despite Tanya’s enthusiastic and regular reminders that the property was, first and foremost, a working farm, wasn’t it, ‘Rina?

 

The door itself was heavy mahogany and felt rich under Carlisle’s knuckles and, being unused to functioning front doors, the doctor felt rather spoilt for it.

 

“Just coming!” called Tanya’s voice from somewhere inside the labyrinthine palace before not a second later she was revealed, beaming, to her guest.

 

Tanya, in all her wholesome, curvy glory, was a bubbly strawberry blonde and was often called Strawberry Shortcake (very far) behind her back, owing to the uncanny resemblance between the cartoon character and herself. 

 

The vampire, despite being so ancient, had a fun sense of humour, wore checked shirts, hiking boots and drove tractors.

 

…Except today at the door she was wearing absolutely _nothing_ bar a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs jauntily slung over her shoulder.

 

Before Carlisle could splutter an apology, spectrally, as was her way, Irina appeared behind her, decorated with only with an arched eyebrow and a dressing gown embroidered with fine spider webs in silver thread, which honestly did little to hide the naked skin beneath.

 

 _Her_ sense of humour was so dry it could have drained Atlantis.

 

She did not drive tractors, or speak very much, but when she did it was with deep purpose and a heavy eastern European accent.

 

Carlisle coughed awkwardly, realising his accidental intrusion.

 

“S-sorry is it a bad time?” he stammered, curbing the instinct to bolt in the interest of politeness towards his family’s closest allies.

 

“No! Anything but!” Tanya said with a catlike grin, draping herself lavishly over the vampire at her side whose face and posture did not change upon receipt of the action.

 

“Er…right, well,” Carlisle said with as much courtesy as he could manage. “I didn’t mean to disturb you I just…”

 

To his alarm, the doctor almost laughed at the awkwardness of the situation, Emmett’s laughing face swimming across his mind, but luckily got a hold of himself.

 

“…Wanted to offer my condolences,” he tried again thickly. “For your loss.”

 

“Aw _shucks!_ That _is_ sweet of you, Carlisle!” Tanya beamed. “Please, come in!”

 

“That’s quite alright,” Carlisle said quickly, all the while fixing his eyes very determinedly on Tanya’s _face._ “I was just wondering if you knew where Kate had got to?”

 

“Oh! You know what, Carlisle?” Tanya frowned apologetically. “She _just_ dashed off to the ridge a few hours ago.”

 

“Very sad,” Irina added coldly, studying Carlisle’s embarrassment as if he were a specimen of squelchy amphibian worthy of mild scientific interest. “About death.”

 

“Right-o, then. I’ll just…” Carlisle mumbled, stumbling backwards. “Sorry for…barging in…”

 

“Not at all! Come back soon!” Tanya said excitedly, shooting Irina a smile, though _she_ looked unconcerned as to whether Carlisle came back at all or merely walked out to the neatest lake and drowned himself. “We’re having swans!”

 

“I…when might be a good time to come back…?” Carlisle asked Tanya, drawing his attention away from the apathy beside her.

 

“Our door is always open!” she twanged.

 

Her pair of long-lashed golden eyes blinked at Carlisle expectantly.

 

He squirmed.

 

“I mean,” he said in a pleading voice, begging she take the hint, windmilling his hands. “When might you be…?”

 

_Ready? Decent? Not shagging?_

 

“Five o’clock,” Irina answered with certainty.

 

“Right, brilliant,” Carlisle said, gratefully retreating. “I’ll see you…soon, then. Enjoy your…er…afternoon…”

 

“Thank you, Carlisle!” Tanya called sweetly as he vanished into the forest. “We really- AGH! _’Rina!”_

 

Her speech was cut of by a very loud and shrill peal of her own giggles as _God only knows what_ recommenced in Carlisle’s blessed absence.

 

 _“Bloody_ hell,” he whispered to himself. “I mean…sorry… _goodness_ me!”

 

Carlisle let out a huff as he climbed the cliff where Kate had found solace, and understandably so.

 

“…Door is always open…” he muttered as he swatted the foliage out of his way. “I did _call_ …I mean _really_ …Might have put on a dressing gown, at least…And I’m… _I’m_ the one who doesn’t know how to behave! Honestly…Being rude about my carpet…look at _their_ bloody carpet! Having _swans,_ I ask you…”

 

His whispered ranting ceased very suddenly as a gust of breeze carried Kate’s scent to him.

 

Taking a breath, he pulled himself up onto the next outcropping of rock where all his senses were telling him the woman was situated.

 

Kate didn’t even look round as she heard him approach. The only sign that she had heard was the tightening of her taut shoulder muscles and a slight clenching of her fists.

 

“If you’re about to complain about how you ruined your relationship with the human, and expect a sympathy fuck,” she said at last, just as Carlisle was about to formally make his presence known. “You will get a hundred _thousand_ volts, I swear to whatever God you think you are today, Cullen, this is…”

 

She let out a sharp breath, as if she were wounded, (which Carlisle supposed she was).

 

“This is not the time…”

 

“I wasn’t-” Carlisle began softly, but was interrupted.

 

“I’m not fixing any electrical goods for you, either,” Kate snapped.

 

Following this outburst, there was a tight silence, severed at last after Kate turned around and broke into apologetic laughter.

 

“Carlisle, _who_ lets you dress yourself!” she giggled. “Honestly!”

 

Carlisle felt the beast inside him shriek with rage.

 

“Don’t _laugh_ at me!” he spat, hearing taunting children’s laughter in his ears.

 

However, upon seeing Kate’s smile, amazingly, Carlisle broke into reluctant chuckles of his own.

 

“Is the problem the scarf…or the cardigan?” he wondered, coming to stand next to her.

 

Kate laughed harder.

 

“Do I have to pick one?” she spluttered.

 

“Well…” Carlisle shrugged, and nudged her easily with his elbow.

 

“Carlisle, this whole…” Kate began, squinting. “…Aesthetic…you know.”

 

She dropped her voice to sound almost apologetic.

 

“It is…it’s very gay.”

 

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Carlisle laughed in bewilderment. “You know, _Esme’s_ a woman, and _she_ finds my scarfs very attractive. She told me.”

 

“Then she’s the one, buddy,” Kate said before she realised _what_ she was saying.

 

At this, Carlisle’s face fell almost imperceptibly, but Kate, who knew him well, took this as the sign to stop laughing.

 

“Right, we’ve laughed at Carlisle,” he said as evenly as he could now that his heart had started imploding anew with the memory of rejection, but remembering that Kate was in pain too. “And I’m glad I’ve managed to cheer you up, at any rate. And I _did_ just want to keep you company.”

 

Kate shrugged, unable to find the words to answer him.

 

“It’s been centuries,” she said at last. “But still…”

 

“The curse of a flawless memory,” Carlisle agreed, leading her with one of his more human gestures to a small ledge of rock where they could needlessly sit.

 

“Have you been to see Tanya and Irina yet?” Kate asked with a barely concealed sniffle.

 

“Um, yes, I did,” Carlisle answered with a chuckle. “They were…grieving in their own way.”

 

Kate snorted with laughter.

 

“I know, I had to leave,” she said. “How bad was it?”

 

“Alright,” Carlisle grinned. “Nothing too scarring this time.”

 

“Well you called first, I suppose,” Kate added wryly before her face fell a little. “It makes me lonely…sometimes. Seeing them, and seeing Carmen and Eleazar together…”

 

“I know how you feel,” Carlisle sighed, picking rock absently away from the granite outcrop they were seated on. “It’s hard to be the only unmated vampire in a coven. And, you know, _yes,_ we laugh at them and it’s all good fun, but really they’re just showing that after hundreds and hundreds of years they’re still devoted to one another, and of that I couldn’t be more envious.”

 

“Yup,” Kate said. “They have some _spectacular_ arguments but, when the smoke clears, the city’s still standing, as it were.”

 

She took a harsh breath and was thankful, more than ever, for Carlisle’s unending ability to _listen._

 

“I was close to mother, though,” she continued. “In a way they weren’t. While they were off…”

 

She threw a hand out in front of her.

 

“…Doing frightfully private things?” Carlisle offered with a smirk.

 

“Yes,” Kate agreed. “I was with Sasha. Listening to her stories…laughing with her…”

 

A ripple of charge prickled over Carlisle’s skin as beside him Kate trembled with rage.

 

“She didn’t deserve what happened,” she snarled. “I mean, I know she broke the law, and knowingly so…but the Volturi didn’t _execute_ her, they _tortured her to death._ It wasn’t just punishment for them, it was _sport_ …And they made us watch it.”

 

Kate’s eyes burned black.

 

“My _mother…”_ she choked as Carlisle bravely stroked her shoulder for comfort.

 

“I wonder why she changed someone so young,” he murmured after a while.

 

“Yeah, I wonder too,” Kate agreed softly. “What was so special about that little boy that she created him, behind our backs? I mean…did she love _him_ more than she loved the three of _us?”_

 

The doctor saw the agony in her eyes as she remembered her mother’s screams as she burned.

 

“If I ever see Jane again, I will kill her,” Kate said hollowly. “And that is a _promise._ If I had had enough control over my bolts at the time I could have…”

 

Not needing words to demonstrate, Kate threw her body forwards and with a flash of light, the rock before her bubbled and tracks of liquid silica fanned like distributaries away from the charred ground.

 

“I’m…not sure Sasha would have recommended violence on her behalf,” Carlisle said calmly. “She did what she had to do to protect the three of you. You had plausible deniability owing to her omission. If she had shared her plans with you, you would have been bound to report her, lest you suffer the same fate.”

 

“I would _never_ have betrayed her, to the Volturi,” Kate snarled. “They are _corrupt_ rulers, you do realise this? I know you peddle friendship but-”

 

“Mmm, slight development on that front,” Carlisle interrupted nervously, rubbing the back of neck. “I um…got a bit cross and…perhaps said something rather inflammatory to Aro and…”

 

“Uh oh…” Kate said, eyes wide.

 

“…Our normal correspondence has ceased, since the incident,” Carlisle finished in a sheepish mumble.

 

“Oh…dear,” Kate said, with a small flick of amusement to the corner of her mouth.

 

“Yes, 'oh dear', indeed,” Carlisle said dryly, though pleased to have finally told someone the worrying news.

 

“You can take him,” Kate nodded confidently.

 

“Undoubtedly. I just…” Carlisle began, dropping his golden head into his hands. “He’s more cunning than I’d like to think. He’s _plotting._ And that makes me nervous.”

 

“And that’s yet another reason why you and this Esme can’t be together?” Kate said with new understanding. “God, the odds are against you two…”

 

“I don’t know what to do for the best…” Carlisle grunted, frustrated. “She’s a potential _target,_ she had me _distracted,_ she can’t defend herself against supernatural attack, she spends time with _werewolves-”_

 

Kate took in a sharp breath.

 

“Yes, exactly. Palpitations I don’t need.”

 

“Bite her.”

 

“Kate, I can’t,” Carlisle burst. “Firstly I’ll kill her, her blood is too sweet, I lose my mind. And second, she wants to stay human, she’s told me, and there didn’t seem to be any doubt in her mind as she did.”

 

He sighed, feeling all of his many years all at once.

 

“But as you said,” he whispered. “She’s the one. So…”

 

“Carlisle,” Kate said seriously. “Listen, I would _kill_ to have what you had, no, _still have,_ with her. You _love_ her.”

 

She laughed.

 

“And the thing is, I’m struggling to think of another woman who wouldn’t want to become a vampire and be with you.”

 

“Being a vampire is not a good thing!” Carlisle argued.

 

“Really?” Kate smirked. “I think you’re selling yourself short. Immortality, enhanced senses, speed, strength _…money._ Carlisle, I know you think you’re above pulling that one but maybe you _do_ have to have that conversation.”

 

“Oh, she’d be my _immortal escort,_ then?” he sneered angrily. "Or a trophy wife?"

 

“Chill out, I was not trying to insult either of you,” Kate said placatingly. “Just pointing out that she would have a wonderful life with you which I’m certain you won’t have adequately communicated to her.”

 

“Esme is so...non-materialistic…” Carlisle began, with a mixture of amusement and wonder on his face. “I don’t even know where I’d start with that one. I bought her a potted plant, a _potted plant,_ and it was a complete panic! I thought she’d hate me for it!”

 

“You think everyone is going to hate you, but they don’t!” Kate laughed. “They _don’t,_ Carlisle.”

 

He chuckled too, but darkly.

 

“Look at this!” he said angrily. “Here I was supposed to be making _you_ feel better and now it’s all about me again. Kate, I apologise.”

 

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

 

“It’s always about me,” he muttered bitterly. “Dīs Pater…”

 

“You know _I_ don’t believe you are,” Kate said. “Nor does Irina, and extension Tanya either.”

 

“I know,” he huffed. “As Bella likes to remind me, there is a seventy-two point eight percent chance I’m just a schizophrenic with a flair for high intensity radiation.”

 

“And that’s okay,” Kate said as condescendingly as she could, grinning the whole time. “And would you look at us, all subatomic!”

 

“Yeah,” Carlisle smiled, lightening despite himself. “And now we’re both smiling, so mission accomplished.” 

 

“You’ve changed since I last saw you,” Kate said seriously.

 

“I’m sure I have,” Carlisle answered. “I’ve known happiness,”

 

“You seem…”

 

“Subdued?” he offered, imagining that to be true.

 

“Safer,” Kate answered carefully. “Esme’s made you a lot more in-control, which…"

 

She laughed incredulously.

 

“I take my hat off to her…”

 

Kate tipped her head to one side and eyed Carlisle thoughtfully.

 

“Uh-oh,” he said warily. “I know that look. I don’t like that look…”

 

“I’m...just wondering if it would be for the best if you and Esme were together for that reason,” she explained.

 

“Oh, so she’d be my…control rod?” Carlisle said, quirking an eyebrow.

 

“Exactly. In a purely utilitarian sense, she ought to do her part in protecting the world from the mighty Dīs Pater,” Kate said with an edge of bitterness.

 

“Easy, now,” Carlisle said warningly, feeling the fire of argument bristle between them. “We’ve been doing really well today, so far. And Kate, she doesn’t _want-”_

 

“She _thinks_ she doesn’t want to after what she’s been through with her psychopath ex-husband,” Kate interrupted him to say. “But she’ll come around. With the right kind of attitude from _you,_ that is.”

 

“How did you know about the husband?” Carlisle demanded. _“I_ never told you that.”

 

“Alice told us all.”

 

“She had no right!” he spluttered, angry on Esme’s behalf.

 

“No, she didn’t have any right, at all,” Kate said archly. “And I told her so. ‘Course, she didn’t listen and skipped off to play with her Bitcoin or Flappy Bird or whatever she’s doing.”

 

“Oh,  _Alice,”_ Carlisle sighed.

 

“You’ve gotta get her under control, Carlisle,” Kate insisted. “Casino heists? _Really?_ If _I_ were the Volturi, I would not be happy with her, gift be damned. And she’s young, which you don’t want to draw attention to.”

 

“She’s not a child vampire by Aro's definition and she isn't my creation,” Carlisle said firmly. “But I will have a word.”

 

“Please do,” Kate said flatly. “And put a lid on the spending - she turned up here dressed more expensively than _Irina,_ which I can tell you did not go down too well.”

 

“Bet it didn’t!” Carlisle laughed. “Bloody hell!”

 

“Speaking of…” Kate said slyly, tapping Carlisle’s bare wrist. “Where’s the Rolex?”

 

“Esme kept frowning at it when she thought I wasn’t looking, so I stopped wearing it,” he said, then held his hand up before Kate could speak. _“Yes,_ I know…”

 

“I’m saying nothing,” Kate smirked.

 

They sat together thoughtfully for a few moments, watching the subtle changes in the light as the sun crept slowly towards the horizon behind its duvet of cloud. 

 

“We’d better slope back for our electric eels or whatever we’re having,” Carlisle said, jumping to his feet, after a little more time had elapsed. “Don’t want to be late.”

 

He courteously held out a hand to Kate to help her up.

 

“And, as always, wonderful to talk to you,” he added.

 

“And you,” Kate nodded.

 

“Also, if Aro contacts you...Tell me, would you?” Carlisle asked.

 

“Of course,” she said. “And the…the point I was _trying_ to make was…just because Esme has a level of self-preservation doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”

 

She looked over to where Carlisle, the new and improved Carlisle, was glowering at the ground.

 

“There’s hope yet.”

 

 

 

 


	37. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay!
> 
> And, MistOnTheMountain, enjoy your veiled shout-out. You're now a fic 'extra'!

The squeak of Billy’s chair wheels on the linoleum was a very typical accompaniment to both the contented hum of the deep freeze and Cheetos’ chainsaw snores.

 

However, today Cheetos could be seen out of the window bounding excitedly around Esme who, as well as being _Esme,_ didn’t smell of that horrible sweet sharpness like she had before.

 

Billy watched fondly as his unofficial second child decided that the stick Esme had found him was the most beautiful stick he’d _ever_ sniffed in his doggy life.

 

“Dad, can I ask you something?” Jacob asked, shattering the peace, after the shuffling of big feet announced his approach.

 

“Mmm?” Billy asked, swivelling himself around.

 

“Do you…and it’s totally cool if you do,” the boy muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “But…do you, like, _like_ Esme.”

 

“Romantically? No,” Billy told him truthfully. “But as a friend, absolutely.”

 

“So you wouldn’t… _date_ Esme?”

 

“Jake, I think Quil’s too young for her if he’s making you ask on his behalf,” Billy joked and the teen laughed.

 

“I’m not,” he chuckled. “He’s not balls-ey enough.”

 

“Esme and I are like family,” Billy said after thinking for a moment of the best way to explain the friendship that the two of them shared. “We tell each other a lot of personal things, and we don’t judge one another.”

 

“Cool…” Jacob tailed off. “No, seriously, it’s cool, I like her…”

 

He froze for a moment.

 

“And here’s Charlie!” he continued, sensitive ears having picked up the sound of the cruiser.

 

In a whirlwind of limbs and enthusiasm, Jacob had vanished and reappeared on the other side of the glass, greeting the chief and his wife.

 

“Renée, hi!” he shouted, stopping short and gawping at the size of her abdomen and not sure what he was meant to say about it.

 

“Due any minute!” Renée laughed. “Literally!”

 

Wheeling himself outside, Billy couldn’t stop the smile as he wrung his friend’s hand, though what he wanted to discuss with him was anything but light.

 

Charlie had somehow sensed this down the phone and so, leaving Renée in Esme’s capable (and Jacob’s well-meant but rather _less_ than capable) hands, he beckoned the other man away to seclusion.

 

“Mr Black, how can I help you,” asked Chief Swan when they were out of even Jacob’s sensitive earshot.

 

“I…wanted to ask you about someone,” Billy began slowly.

 

“Cullen?” Charlie asked immediately, the doctor never being far from his thoughts.

 

“No, actually,” Billy frowned. “When Esme was staying here she was asleep during the game-”

 

Charlie smirked.

 

“She’s not really a sports fan,” he chuckled. “Don’t take it personally.”

 

Billy nodded.

 

“Well,” he began again. “She-”

 

“Was it the football?” Charlie interrupted, still laughing.

 

“Wha…no, soccer actually.”

 

“Anyway,” Charlie coughed apologetically, motioning for his friend to continue. “Go on.”

 

“Esme had a nightmare, quite a bad one. We had to wake her,” Billy frowned. “And the nightmare seemed to be about a man called…Charles?”

 

Charlie sucked in a breath and ran his hand over his face.

 

“Now I know it’s none of my business,” Billy continued softly. “But…I’ve…surmised enough for me to know where the compulsive cleaning and the nightmares have come from…”

 

“Yup, the cleaning’s a real kicker,” Charlie said in hollow tones, kicking bitterly at the mud under his feet. _“I_ used to wish I had that. Don’t now, though. It’s like wishing for an eating disorder…”

 

He sniffed awkwardly and began his tale.

 

“Charles was my roommate when we were training to be cops…”

 

The Chief barked a laugh at the thought of Charles Evenson wielding authority, or worse, a _gun._

 

“Jesus, he was almost a cop…” Charlie breathed. “Anyway…he dropped out after a year. He had these… _unspecified learning disabilities.”_

 

He waved his hands above his head to demonstrate his frustration with Charles’ lack of accountably.

 

“Anyway….then he started a business course at the same community college as Esme and, of course, she offered to help him study.”

 

Charlie’s ensuing grumble sufficed, in his opinion to sum-up the couple’s ensuing courtship and marriage.

 

“I didn’t suspect a thing,” he then said shamefully. “I…knew, or _assumed_ that Esme was having trouble getting pregnant and lost a few pregnancies and thought that was why she was down. Little did I know…”

 

Billy rested a comforting hand on Charlie's arm as the man began to tear up a little.

 

“Her last little one was at about four months, I think,” Charlie continued thickly. “And that’s when…”

 

“It’s alright, Charlie,” Billy murmured. “It’s not your fault. You were here at the time, she was miles away…”

 

Charlie dipped his head in half-agreement.

 

“I don’t know what happened besides that Esme was forgiving,” he said, fists clenching unconsciously by his sides. “And Charles was violent. He’s in a secure medical facility now making paper airplanes or something while my sister falls to fucking pieces.”

 

“She’s better, Charlie,” Billy soothed. “She’s getting better.”

 

“Not since she ditched _Cullen,”_ Charlie sighed. “…Although I couldn’t be happier about that…”

 

Brightening a little, the Chief remembered he was in sympathetic company.

 

“What’s _your_ beef with the man?” he asked Billy cheerfully.

 

“We try to avoid talking about him,” the Quilliute answered him quietly, casting his eyes briefly to the sky.

 

“Can’t say something like that to a cop, Billy,” Charlie joked.

 

Yes, Billy remembered. Charlie was a cop. The very cop who called six sets of parents with the news of their children’s deaths by wolf attack.

 

But that was a lie…

 

“Charlie,” Billy began urgently, before his better judgement stopped him. “Have you ever heard the story of the Cold Ones and Dīs P-”

 

“Billy! You’ve got to get ready for your appointment!” Esme interrupted, jingling the keys to the minivan and making both men jump guiltily.

 

***

 

The hospital was familiar turf to Esme, but, since she and Carlisle hadn’t been able to settle their differences, every nook and cranny exuded fear, and anxiety scuttled up and down her skin.

 

Even so, with his presence alone, Billy offered her comfort and was quite simply… _warmer_ than everyone else which she suspected was more to do with his gentle soul than his diluted wolf blood.

 

Esme was genuinely thrilled for him when the wound specialist prescribed him some gentler compression socks and commented on the, frankly unexpected, progress his legs had made in the last week (when unbeknownst to the nurse, Esme had been keeping a very close eye on his diet).

 

However, the happiness didn’t settle on Billy who was oozing distinct discontent as Esme wheeled him back out of the hospital.

 

“Esme, I don’t want you to feel obliged to wheel me around and take me to appointments and things,” he said at last as she fished in her bag for the keys of his car. “My health isn’t your problem.”

 

“S’fine Billy,” Esme said honestly. “It’s nice to be useful.”

 

“I just…” Billy began haltingly, knowing how vast the issue really was that he was about to breach. “I don’t want to…take advantage of you…”

 

There was a moment of silence as it dawned on Esme why he would say such a thing.

 

“Gee, Charlie, way to keep your mouth shut,” she said dryly, unlocking the car with a briskness that upset Billy.

 

Seeing his face, she sighed, and then laughed.

 

“Billy, it’s alright,” she said kindly. “Goodness knows you’ve helped me over the last week.”

 

To prove her devotion to the man who had become her project of sorts, Esme leaned down to give Billy a peck on the cheek.

 

Billy didn’t even _feel_ the kiss, rather his eyes were fixed, quite simply, upon murder.

 

“Oh… _shit!”_ he muttered.

 

Across the lot, Dr Cullen was staring.

 

He looked _livid._

 

So _impossibly_ angry he could split the Earth’s crust.

 

Esme gasped in shock, not at the anger, which she was fairly used to, and frankly found it better to ignore, but the man’s unearthly beauty.

 

Beauty, in and out, so all-consuming you would do anything for it.

 

Turning to gauge Esme’s reaction, Billy saw on the woman’s face pure, unconditional love and, with horror, didn’t believe any vampire trick was causing it.

 

Apparently missing what was so flabbergastingly obvious, or attributing Esme’s look to Billy’s proximity, Carlisle’s face crumpled in pain before he threw himself into his car and sped wildly away.

 

Esme felt his sadness.

 

“Oh, _Carlisle!”_ she gasped, hand flying to her mouth.

 

 

***

 

 

That night, there was a storm.

 

A windows rattling, electricity in your bones, storm.

 

It was so terrifying that Esme wanted to _scream,_ but, instead, dialled the number that had appeared in her contacts after her phone had been left unattended next to Alice for three seconds.

 

The pixie answered on the first ring.

 

“Alice,” Esme warned. “Would you _please_ tell your father to calm down, before I lose my roof!”

 

Just like magic, and Esme had no other word for it, the wind died.

 

The air settled.

 

“Thank you,” she breathed down the line.

 

“You’re welcome,” Alice chirruped before wishing Esme love.

 

Too tired to articulate how she was feeling about the fact the Carlisle was still present in the very fibres of the world around her despite their strict ‘separation’, she fell quickly into an uneasy sleep.

 

 

 

_Through narrow streets bob a procession of heads._

 

_Esme smiles at the children’s glee before she realises that one child is not enjoying the chase. He is the child_ **_being_ ** _chased._

 

_Somehow, through the twisted lens of time and space, she recognises the child limping desperately but in vein away from his swarm of eager pursuers._

 

_“Elephant boy!” one shouts. “Where are you going?”_

 

_Nowhere, it seems, for he trips._

 

_Crying, and with blood dribbling from both knees, the boy is dragged to his feet, whereupon a second, rat-faced urchin takes a handful of the filth that sits in piles along the street, wrenches open the boy’s mouth, and chokes him with the dirt._

 

_“Stop!” Esme screams. “STOP!”_

 

 

 

“STOP!”

 

Whether it was Charlie’s shake or the shock of what she had seen that woke her, Esme didn’t know.

 

However, she _did_ know, somehow, that what she had seen had actually happened.

 

“Charlie…” she breathed, head spinning. “Oh my God…”

 

“Esme, it’s alright…” he reassured her. “…It’s just a dream.”

 

She shook her head.

 

“No…no it isn’t,” she choked. “He’s _hurting_ …Oh my… _God…”_

 

Feeling sick, she stood up and nearly fell as the blood rushed from her head.

 

“Hey…easy does it, sis,” Charlie said worriedly.

 

“Oh my God,” Esme repeated for the third time as she felt something: a visceral, almost animalistic need to see those children _die._ And that shocked her.

 

That really wasn’t like her. It was a feeling that was almost…almost…

 

…Vampiric.

 

After, at last, Charlie had gratefully retreated, Esme didn’t fall back to sleep, rather contemplated what her feelings meant.

 

That she would kill children if they hurt Carlisle?

 

Well… _yes._

 

Which was absolute _madness._

 

 _Absolute_ madness.

 

Especially since she and Carlisle weren’t actually together. Or…or they were _trying_ not to be. Were they together? What did her feelings mean? It wasn’t _sane!_

 

The memory of the boy’s terrified, _familiar_ face propelled Esme to work half-an-hour early in the hope of catching Carlisle.

 

Something was happening to her and, stolen bucket or not, she needed to ask the doctor about it.

 

However, he seemed to have anticipated this move since on their desk, rather than his doctor’s bag, was a note.

 

 _Esme - I’m dreadfully sorry for my behaviour yesterday,_ he had written.

 

_I think now I can understand why the thought of myself with other woman wounded you, so._

 

_I promise it won’t happen again._

 

_Dr Cullen._

 

“Okay, cool,” Esme muttered to herself, frowning.

 

Fishing out her phone, she almost sent Carlisle a text, but she realised the odds of his having kept the number he gave her were slim - he was nothing if not thorough.

 

“Right then, doctor,” Esme sighed but, before she could slump into her work day, her phone buzzed.

 

 ** _He’s hiding in the radiography changing room!!!!!!!!! Biggest kisses and hugs from Alice!!!!!!!!!,_** read what Esme could decipher from the slurry of emojis the tiny vampire had sent her.

 

Walking as fast as she could, and getting embarrassingly lost in what was really a tiny hospital, it was a relief to finally find the door.

 

“Dr Cullen?” she called respectfully as, needlessly, she knocked.

 

“Come in,” came the curt reply.

 

_Here we go…_

 

“Do you have a second?” Esme asked as she peered around the door.

 

“An indefinite number of them, yes,” Carlisle replied.

 

Esme fought the urge to both roll her eyes and laugh with joy as she shuffled inside and shut the door to give them some privacy.

 

“Firstly, I wanted to thank you for your note,” she said politely, starting on courteous ground.

 

“Thank you for taking the trouble to read it,” the doctor muttered, and gave her a purse-lipped smile.

 

“I’m sorry you saw…that, yesterday,” Esme continued since it was obvious to her that Carlisle was a little more interested that he would have liked to appeared. “But it wasn’t what you think.”

 

“It’s none of my business what it was, which is why I was apologising,” Carlisle said calmly. “We’re just colleagues.”

 

Esme chuckled sadly.

 

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only one in this hospital who thinks that,” she said wryly. “Surely you’ve heard…?”

 

“Yes, I am the eligible bachelor again,” Carlisle said sarcastically. “And thank _God_ for it, lest I miss out on Heather Stanley’s not-to-subtle advances which I…”

 

He gave an incredulous laugh through his grimace.

 

 _“..So_ crave.”

 

“And I’m just another floozie who can’t keep a boyfriend,” Esme chuckled in an attempt to make light of what was becoming a rather awkward social position.

 

“Don’t you have a new one now?” Carlisle wondered, an edge of aggression to his voice.

 

“Oh, look who _is_ interested, after all!” Esme burst.

 

“I’m _interested,_ just because vampires aren’t the only beasts who can lost their temper,” Carlisle said seriously. “Wolves are not known for their level-headedness _. Please_ look after yourself.”

 

Sighing, Esme strode forward.

 

“Look, Carlisle, I understand why you didn’t tell me about your…ability,” Esme told him, tackling that particular issue head-on.

 

“Rosalie was right,” he sighed, as he held up his hands placatingly. “I shouldn’t have kept something like that from you.”

 

“That’s true,” Esme nodded. “But I _did_ know.”

 

“You…how?”

 

“The wolves told me a story-”

 

“They had no right!” Carlisle spluttered.

 

“No _specifics…”_ Esme reassured him calmly. “Your name was not mentioned. I figured it out.”

 

“How?” he demanded.

 

Esme merely raised an eyebrow.

 

“You didn’t exactly try to hide your Death Eater dark smoke trick from me,” she chuckled. “And I just…”

 

She shrugged as Carlisle let out a long, tired sigh.

 

“How could you not know?” he whispered, rubbing his temples.

 

“Plus when you didn’t tell me at the diner I thought it must have been something serious,” Esme said, before breaking into an unexpected fit of giggles. “Or embarrassing. You could have had, like, a super-fart or something.”

 

Carlisle grinned.

 

“No, I would have told you that one,” he smiled. “To make you laugh.”

 

 _God,_ he loved it when she laughed…

 

“I would never laugh at any talent you had, Carlisle,” she reassured him, giving in to the urge to come and sit next to him. “It’s yours and precious.”

 

“Precious…destructive…evil…” he muttered bitterly.

 

“No, it wasn’t that which was the issue,” Esme told him.

 

“Frankly, I’m amazed you stayed if you knew…” Carlisle muttered.

 

Then, inspiration struck.

 

“If this is about the _fish-”_ Carlisle began with an edge if defensiveness in his voice.

 

“Yes! Well… _no,”_ Esme interrupted. “But, on the subject, that was…that was a real _dick move,_ to coin a phrase.”

 

“It’s my nature,” Carlisle reminded her loftily.

 

“But not your personality,” Esme shot back, trying to ignore the very sweet crease between the doctor’s brows as he thought of a response.

 

Silence.

 

“Were you…testing me?” she asked at last, when it seemed that no retort witty enough had come to Carlisle.

 

“Yes, I was,” he confirmed, interested as to where Esme’s new train of thought had stemmed from.

 

“Did I pass?” she asked.

 

“Well, you confirmed my suspicions,” Carlisle told her.

 

“Of what?”

 

“Our complete and utter incompatibility.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Esme said, sounding more hurt than she had intended to show. “We’re having a nice conversation, aren’t we?”

 

“Hmm,” agreed Carlisle, then awkwardly tried to prolong it. “So…how…are you?”

 

“Ah…good I guess?” Esme replied. “Though also suspected to be pretty easy at the moment, as I said. _Three_ different guys asked me out yesterday, you know.”

 

She laughed.

 

“Can’t imagine why they’d bother. I _did_ think it may have been a _joke_ but, seemingly-”

 

“Who… _were they?”_ Carlisle snarled with a look of great focus.

 

Esme pursed her lips disapprovingly, but did admit to herself that she had pushed his limits with that particular tit-bit of conversation.

 

“Individuals that in the interest of their safely shall remain unnamed,” she said, scolding him with her eyes until he calmed down a little.

 

“So the ‘floozie’ comment was in response to something?” he assumed.

 

Esme groaned and clapped her hands to her reddening cheeks.

 

“Christina, somehow seems to think that I am a complete nymphomaniac,” she laughed. “And has kindly informed the rest of the town this, too.”

 

“Ah, that’s nice of her,” Carlisle said dryly, feeling an oddly blunt sensation at the sight of the blood under Esme’s skin.

 

How peculiar…

 

“So how are _you?”_ she then asked. “Nice holiday?”

 

“Not especially,” Carlisle grumbled, unintentionally nursing a dimpled grin out of his companion with his predictable grumpiness.

 

“Where did you go?” Esme probed.

 

“I was up in Alaska, visiting some friends of our family. It was the anniversary of their mother…er their _creator’s_ execution,” Carlisle told her cheerfully, forgetting that to most humans this wasn’t a very normal thing to have done.

 

“Wow…heavy,” Esme frowned.

 

“Yes,” Carlisle replied. “They’re still very upset.”

 

“So I can imagine,” Esme said kindly. “What happened? What did she do?”

 

“Sasha, the creator of our friends, broke the law by creating a child vampire,” the doctor explained knowledgeably. “They can’t be controlled and therefore pose a threat to our kind by exposing us. She was found out and the Volturi killed her in a particularly awful way.”

 

“The…Volturi who say that no humans can know about vampires?” Esme asked the vampire, a little warily.

 

“Er…yes,” Carlisle said with an awkward cough. “But…um…don’t worry about them.”

 

“Yeah, I can take them,” Esme said, nodding with ironic confidence.

 

It was at this moment that both Esme and Carlisle seems to realise that they had somehow managed to get quite _close_ to one another.

 

As well as being transfixed by Esme’s beauty, the doctor found himself frowning in confusion at the dullness of the burn in his throat - a burning nearly and bizarrely…tolerable.

 

“Sorry!” Esme gasped and lurched backwards, realising the danger.

 

“No!” Carlisle gasped, horrified at the idea that Esme might _ever_ be out of his reach. “Actually after…”

 

Carlisle cleared his throat awkwardly.

 

“After…er…what occurred,” he mumbled, with the memory of a blush. “…It seems…your scent isn’t so…”

 

“Not so potent?” Esme asked, curious.

 

“Not that,” Carlisle said thoughtfully. “I just don’t _mind_ it as much…or I’ve got used to it. I…theorise that pushing my restraint…in the manner we…did makes more… _casual_ contact easier.”

 

“Yeah, er…about what happened last Saturday…” Esme began, delightfully pink-cheeked. “It was really…”

 

“Dumb?” Carlisle grinned.

 

“Yes, I think a real stupid-teen moment,” Esme agreed gratefully.

 

“I’m afraid I fell into a bad habit,” the doctor replied apologetically. “I really don’t know what I was thinking, putting you in danger like that…”

 

Esme smirked.

 

“Probably along the lines of what I was thinking,” she laughed. “Which _cannot_ be repeated in the light of day.”

 

“Yes, I should think that _was_ what I was thinking,” Carlisle said sheepishly, though grateful that she understood. “Can you forgive my bad manners?”

 

“Yes,” Esme sighed, knowing there was no hope. “Because I’m in love with you.”

 

Her words rang true. 

 

Just sitting in the same room as Carlisle had lifted a weight from her chest that she hadn’t even realised had settled in his absence. The anxiety was gone, leaving in its place _glorious_ happiness.

 

“I’m in love with you too,” Carlisle whispered. “But…”

 

He windmilled his hands.

 

“Let’s take it slow this time?” Esme translated. “I mean, at first we can be friends, can’t we? In an adult post-breakup sort of way.”

 

Carlisle frowned, then slowly his best and brightest smile inched across his face.

 

“I suppose that could work,” he nodded eagerly, before his face fell, remembering the enjoyable sensation of bruises blooming under his fingers. “If I…”

 

“Carlisle you _will_ control yourself,” Esme said confidently and then, to prove her point, she rabbeted through the filing cabinet behind her and produced a sheet of stickers intended for kids who were getting their shots which, in true Forks-style, could be found in the most unexpected of places and were fair-game to be stolen.

 

Esme plucked a particularly shiny one from the sheet and smoothed it lovingly onto the lapel of Carlisle’s lab coat.

 

 _I’m a Superstar!_ It read. 

 

His hand went automatically to cup Esme’s cheek but he dropped it quickly, looking embarrassed.

 

“ _‘Taking it slowly’,_ Carlisle?” Esme giggled ducking away.

 

“Sorry!” he laughed. “I forgot!”

 

“You _forgot?”_

 

“Oh! Yes!” the doctor began with a mixture of apology and disappointment in his face, remembering something else he had forgotten. “And I mightn't see you for a little while because we have a sunny spell coming in so…in case I don’t…”

 

Carlisle’s face melted.

 

“Have a happy birthday, Esme,” he whispered softly.

 

“Thank you, Carlisle,” Esme smiled, tapping him gently on the nose and turning to leave, aware that she was very almost late to her office and _late_ was something that Esme never was.

 

“Oh, and where’s my bucket, while we’re on the subject?” the doctor continued.

 

Snorting with disbelief, Esme slowly turned back around.

 

“Carlisle, are you _serious_ right n-”

 

She stopped as she saw one of her favourite Carlisle-smiles break across his face.

 

“Okay,” she laughed. “Very good.”

 

“I thought it was, rather,” he sniggered and launched himself suddenly out of his seat to follow Esme, giggling delightfully, into the corridor.

 

He smiled.

 

Esme forgave.

 

They clasped hands.

 

“Race you back to the office!” Carlisle burst and, tottering behind him in unsuitable shoes, Esme reciprocated while, in an unreachable realm, her departed mother screamed _over_ and _over_ again.

 


	38. Twenty Seconds, Nine Pints

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...
> 
> ...Big chapter.
> 
> And the reason this took so long is that I was writing the “Birthday Song” (had to slip a musical number in to the story) which is written to the music of “The Moustache Song” from the movie “Million Ways To Die In The West” (which is hilarious).
> 
> All the words actually do fit, so I was proud of myself there.
> 
> Next thing is that there is a bit of a shock coming but please, please don’t stop reading! There is plenty more to come!
> 
> Hope you like/don’t hate this chapter!

 

“The blue?” Esme asked down the phone while she admired the new bracelet jingling on her wrist. “With the stripes? O…okay goddit.”

 

She was busying herself around the kitchen while she spoke to Renée whom Charlie had driven to the hospital earlier that day.

 

It seemed that Chief junior was a little reluctant to enter the rainy world so, ten days after her due date, Renée was being induced.

 

“And you _did_ grab your toothbrush, right?” Esme asked, suspecting a ‘no’. “‘Cause if not I’ll bring it down…”

 

She frowned as the responses became shriller.

 

“Oh su-…Renée! Don’t stress!”

 

Esme laughed.

 

“My birthday is _not_ the one we should be celebrating today…”

 

Renée said a little more.

 

“Yeah, we can have joint parties…” Esme said sweetly. “No, I don’t mind hanging around, look, I can make us both a cake and I’ll drop it in this afternoon…I…No, go on…Yuh huh…Okay, you take care Renée…yup…five o’clock, I’ll be there so you can squeeze my hand. Bye!”

 

Cancelling the call, Esme returned to her piping bag.

 

The charm on her bracelet caught her eye again and, again, she marvelled at how intricately Billy had managed to carve the miniature wolf.

 

When Billy and Jacob had stopped by with her present, Billy had cheerfully informed Esme that even though his legs weren’t up to much, his hands still worked fine.

 

She had dragged both of them into a fierce cuddle and now thought she probably smelled of wolf to those with sensitive noses which made her feel a little empty for the lack of somebody equally special on her birthday, even though the sky had clouded over.

 

Just as she had set to work again on the cake, Esme jumped out of her skin, hearing something resembling machine-gun fire from outside the house.

 

She dashed to the door but, upon inspection, the sound was in fact a tiny fist rapping mercilessly on her front door.

 

“ESMESWANYOUOPENTHISDOORRIGHT _NOW!”_ Alice shouted through the glass.

 

“What’s the trouble, Alice?” Esme burst as she opened the door and the tiny vampire invited herself in.

 

Vampires did _not_ need an invitation to enter a home and Esme wondered where this myth had originated from. Perhaps the wistful daydream of a human acquainted with Alice.

 

Now soundly and irremovably in Esme’s hallway, the little young woman looked furious.

 

“What’s the _trouble?”_ she asked, tiny mouth prettily agape. “Did you not just tell your sister-in-law that you weren’t going to celebrate your thirty-first _birthday?”_

 

“I-”

 

_“Are you late for something?”_ Alice prompted aggressively.

 

Esme gave Alice a wary look.

 

“I…Don’t think so…?”

 

“Miss Swan,” the tiny vampire huffed, lamenting the un-enthusiasm of grown-ups. “I have been tirelessly planning this party for _months_ and _personally_ invited you!”

 

_Party…? Oh! The party…_

 

Esme’s face crumpled.

 

“Oh, Alice, Sweetie!” she said apologetically. “I…don’t think I ought to come to your house. Your father and I are giving each other some space.”

 

“Yeah,” Bella added dryly to her sister at a pitch impossible for the human to detect. “I think Esme was under the impression that Carlisle attempting to murder her in his bed was his subtle way of _un-_ inviting her.”

 

“You didn’t promise Carlisle!” Alice spluttered, not believing her tiny little ears. 

 

_No_ integrity, this one!

 

“You promised _me! God!”_

 

Losing patience, the littlest Cullen yanked Esme by the arm out of the house and into the ridiculous yellow vehicle that normally decorated the family’s living room, which Esme hadn't suspected would ever be removed.

 

“W-wow, right now?” the human asked as small hands pushed her into the passenger seat of the car in the style of a miniature cop making an arrest.

 

“Esme, I’m so, _so_ sorry about this,” said Bella, looking so, who then conscientiously shut Charlie’s front door.

 

Alice hopped into the driver’s side.

 

“Alice, I need my phone,” Esme told the girl, who waved her spindly arm dismissively.

 

“No you won’t, I’ve seen it,” she chattered, getting comfy in her seat.

 

“Right,” Esme huffed, unconvinced but unarmed, then turned her attention to the more pressing problem as Bella vanished into the undergrowth, presumably choosing to run home instead which made the human a little uneasy. “Er…Alice, honey. Are you old enough to drive yet?”

 

“Ha!” laughed Alice, starting the powerful engine with a jab of her twig-like finger. “You betcha!”

 

“You know what I meant!” Esme hissed urgently. “What if we get pulled over?”

 

At this, Alice turned to Esme with a glint in her eye the human really didn’t like the look of. She revved the engine as if she were on a start line.

 

“No cop’s gonna catch me!” she said gleefully as she punched the gas.

 

“Whoa!” breathed Esme as the yellow missile shot down her street with a roar and the G-force pushed her back into the seat. “Alice! Slow down!”

 

Heeding the misguided advice of the human not, the driver pressed the toe that could reach the accelerator down further while her charge squealed in horror as the pixie processed to take a racer’s line down the main road.

 

“ALICE! RED LIGHT!” Esme shouted as the car flew through the intersection.

 

“It’s fine, nothing was coming!” Alice told her happily, skidding violently to the left.

 

“ONE-WAY!” Esme screamed. “ALICE THIS IS ONE-WAY!

 

“It’s fine,” Alice said calmingly, as if she was explaining to a child. “Nothing will come the other way. And besides it’s quicker.”

 

Then she frowned.

 

“Would you like the radio on?” she asked politely.

 

“SWEET _JESUS!”_ Esme screamed as Alice veered off unexpectedly at a diagonal, select a new trajectory, one irritatingly blocked by a logging truck. “ALICE!”

 

Esme had covered her eyes for impact so Alice was a little disappointed that she had missed the rather skilful bit of driving that had taken the low Porsche between the wheels of the moving truck and literally _underneath_ the vehicle.

 

“Esme, _honestly!”_ Alice tutted as soon as the silly human had stopped screaming. “You’re perfectly safe. There was only a fifteen percent chance we wouldn’t make that, and I timed it perfectly, if I do say so myself. I am the _queen_ of shortcuts!”

 

As the car barrelled, miraculously undamaged, towards the edge of town, Esme’s heart was pounding and she was about to bury her bead in her knees when a paper bag was deposited in her lap.

 

“There’s a fifty percent change you’ll throw up,” Alice chattered. “I hope you won’t, though.”

 

With a groan, Esme closed her eyes and let the forest blur past her. She didn’t think she _could_ be sick because her stomach seemed to have been left behind somewhere in front of Charlie’s house.

 

Just as the human thought she could take it no longer, she heard the crunch of gravel under the long-suffering tyres.

 

“Consider that your birthday bumps,” Alice said calmly, as she pulled up neatly in the living room.

 

Stepping weakly onto the carpet, Esme dropped to her knees.

 

She heard a gravelly chuckle.

 

“Head between your knees, man,” laughed Emmett’s voice.

 

“I will never… _ever_ get in a car with you again,” she said thickly as Alice conscientiously locked the vehicle.

 

“Hmmm, I think you will,” she said smugly before heaving Esme to her reluctant feet and looping a scarf around her face.

 

“Oh, Alice,” Esme breathed shakily, as the cool hand gripped hers like a vice and led her into another room - the foyer, if the clop of her heels on the hard floor was to be trusted. “I really can’t have anything over my eyes. Really, sweetie, you have to let-”

 

And then the hand was gone.

 

“A-Alice?”

 

Esme yanked her blindfold off to find the room empty. The only sign of life was the weary ticking of a very old grandfather clock with a shattered face.

 

There had, however, been an addition to the room after her ill-fated previous visit: there was a black curtain slung across one side of the room.

 

“Alice?” she tried again louder. “Emmett? Bella?”

 

He heard a tiny giggle from behind the curtain but, before she could investigate, a complex jamboree of notes came from the vacant piano.

 

Esme gasped and turned around to find that Edward had appeared.

 

“Edward! What’s goi-”

 

At that carefully timed moment, the room _exploded_ with colour as the fabled confetti canon made its debut (Carlisle had not been joking) and, with a drum roll, the curtain opened to reveal Alice, in the sparkliest little dress Esme had ever seen, taking an ominously deep breath.

 

_“A……human’s gotta **eat,”**_ she sang as a piece of pink cake materialised in Esme’s hand (she didn’t see who had given it to her). _“A vampire’s gotta **drink!”**_

 

(A glass, presumably hurled by Emmett, shattered against the wall to make an artistic statement about this.)

    

_“Oh it was go-ing so **well!”**_ she continued in her song-bird voice. _“Please tell us: what do you **think?”**_

 

The stage was now fully illuminated with what Esme suspected was a deceptively complex lighting system and, with a pang, she noticed the hand-painted scenery - a very glittery mid-west farmhouse, of all things, which Esme somehow felt that she should understand the significance of.

 

_“We know you must be scared,”_ Alice trilled, stealing Esme’s attention once again (as the vampire was at wont to do). _“And very right-ly so. But we’re just try-ing our best. So may- **be** give it a go!”_

 

_“Give a **go!** A small **go!** If you on-ly give it a **go!”**_ sang Alice and Emmett in unison while Bella accompanied this, out-of-time, on a tambourine with a look of great concentration on her face, showing that, unlike her husband, she was about as musical as a very evenly-constructed brick wall.

 

_They’re actually quite good…_ Esme thought absently with the last of her sanity before, gleefully, the little vampire leapt from the twinkling stage and began advancing upon her prey.

                    

_“…The thing is, Esme Swan, it is a dread-ful drag…”_

 

Esme’s head snapped up as the spotlight followed Alice up the wall and on to the chandelier, where she proceeded to swing like a trapeze artist.

 

_“…Our father’s blind as a bat and he’s feeling so terrib-ly **sad…”**_

 

Alice vanished again.

 

_“…So now we’ll get you dressed…”_

 

“Hey!” Esme exclaimed as, with a gust of wind, she found herself behind a dressing screen.

 

_“…All nice-ly neat and scrubbed!”_

 

“What are you doing?” she cried in shock as the sensation of her jeans disappeared and a very light material replaced her jersey.

 

_“For it_ **_is_ ** _your birth-day day - now you’re turning thir-ty-one!”_

 

_“Thir-ty-one!”_ sang the biggest and smallest of vampires in perfect harmony. _“Thir-ty-one! Now you’re turn-ing thir-ty-one!”_

 

Now the music tempo slowed and Esme, slightly apprehensively, awaited the inevitable crescendo.

 

_“And **now** you’re thir-ty-one,” _sang Emmett and Alice, the two of them plus Bella kicking their legs up like a line of chorus girls, though Bella managed to mix her legs up somehow and was raising the opposite each time. _“The best year of your life, be-cause **in** all like-li-hood now you’ll end up Carlisle’s w-”_

 

Since Esme’s ears couldn’t have picked up the sound of the doctor’s car, it was a complete shock when, with a bang, Carlisle flung the door open (taking it off the hinges once and for all).

 

“What…the _devil_ is going on?” he demanded.

 

***

 

“I am _so_ sorry about this, Esme,” Carlisle said, perched awkwardly on the arm of a chair with a fiercely-glittered party hat on his head and clutching a glass of champagne he was not going to drink. “Really, I can’t apologise enough.”

 

“It's alright,” she smiled bravely, newly groomed and dressed in what the littlest vampire deemed to be more suitable party attire.

 

“Well, Happy Birthday, at any rate,” he said stiffly with a matching smile.

 

_You look stunning,_ Edward heard him think.

 

“Thank you,” Esme replied with the dignity she had left.

 

Esme looked down at the floating, rhinestone-dotted, knee-length lilac dress that Alice had not-so-innocently picked out for her. It was the same colour as the dress Esme Platt had worn all those years ago when she was brought to the hospital.

 

Rather embarrassingly, Carlisle couldn’t look away. Esme wondered if he was about to cry.

 

But then he recovered himself.

 

“Many happy returns,” he finished with a small bow and retreated into a corner.

 

“Nah, ah!” Alice said, brandishing a camera. “This is an important day and you’ll want a record, I’m sure.”

 

She grabbed Carlisle’s sleeve and pushed him next to Esme.

 

“Say cheese!”

 

A firm ‘no’ was all he managed but with Esme laughing and the doctor looking, despite this, hopelessly handsome beside her, the photograph appeased the tiny vampire nicely.

 

“Open this one first!” said Alice excitedly and suddenly there was a mound of presents in front of Esme.

 

“Um…oh right,” she said, unsure of what to do. “Presents…that’s very sweet, Alice…”

 

“Alice,” Carlisle sighed, then shared a tired look with Esme which could be called nothing but parental and shocked both of them with its intimacy.

 

“It’s alright, Carlisle,” Esme said and smiled kindly at the girl. “Which one is from you?”

 

“This!” Alice cried as Emmett vanished and reappeared with an enormous, unwrapped, fairly famous, canvas.

 

“Alice,” Esme gasped, not quite believing what she was seeing. “Wait…that can’t… _Alice…”_

 

“Isn’t that one your favourite?” the vampire burst, almost beside herself, knowing the answer to be ‘yes’.

 

Carlisle felt a wave of horror hit him. That _fucking_ Rembrandt!

 

“Yes,” Esme breathed, running her hand over the canvas as if it were the Holy Grail itself. “But sweetie, I can’t accept this. This is too valuable! How did you even afford-”

 

“I’m independently wealthy,” Alice said with a impish smile and a small bow.

 

Esme weakly turned to Carlisle for support.

 

“Carlisle…I can’t…”

 

“Yes, I agree,” he frowned. “I’m not sure there’s enough space in Chief Swan’s house for this.”

 

There was a beat of very heavy silence.

 

“But…maybe we can keep it here and she can come and visit it if she wants,” the doctor amended to try and fix the situation now that Alice’s lip was starting to tremble, forgetting that regular home-visits from the human wasn’t a good idea.

 

“And visit me too, then!” Alice said, brightening immediately and catching Carlisle’s eye just long enough for him to know that was the intention all along.

 

“Now…steady on,” Carlisle warned, but was becoming increasingly caught up in the festive mood and so his concern didn’t carry its normal weight.

 

“Now this is from Rose,” Alice said, handing Esme another unwrapped present.

 

“It isn’t,” the blonde said, suddenly and very icily, present. “And you shouldn’t have to be here.”

 

Esme smiled apologetically.

 

“It’s a beautiful necklace,” Esme said (the most neutral thing she could think of to say). “And this’ll just be quick, Rose, I have to be at the hospital later. In fact Alice, what time is-”

 

“This is from Emmett,” Alice interrupted her and Esme lost her train of though as she tried to work out what could have a box that size and be so light.

 

He chuckled from the corner which Esme was starting to assume was _his_ skulking place.

 

“Already installed it in your car,” he said proudly. “Along with a few of my personal favourites. I can always spot a secret metal-head.”

 

Esme grinned, not feeling, with Emmett, the need to scold him for invading her privacy.

 

“Thank you, Emmett, that was very sweet of you,” Esme laughed.

 

Satisfied, Emmett melted back against Rosalie who was looking rather hawk-like.

 

“Now,” Esme said pursing her lips playfully, tak- _not_ taking Carlisle’s hand, and looking at her little pile of presents

 

She picked up the biggest and squishiest offering and lovingly un-wrapped it.

 

“Its a Ravenclaw scarf,” Bella explained a little sheepishly after Esme had worked out what it was supposed to be. “Edward took a Hogwarts quiz on your behalf, I hope you don’t mind.”

 

“Bella, I _love_ it,” Esme declared, even though the accessory was decidedly un-evenly knitted. “Did you make this yourself?”

 

Bella nodded, and shyly stepped away to give the next presents their turn in the spotlight.

 

“These are from Jasper…” Alice said in a businesslike way. “And Edward…”

 

The doctor cleared his throat apologetically from behind her, realising he was the only one unaccounted for.

 

“Esme, I didn’t…” Carlisle laughed awkwardly. “Didn’t know we were doing presents, so I didn’t…”

 

“Yes you did,” Alice chirruped proudly and handed Esme a small wrapped box.

 

A small jewellery box.

 

_Ring,_ was the immediate thought of everyone present.

 

“Alice!” Carlisle cried, horrified. “What on Earth?”

 

“Fine then,” Alice huffed. “She can open that later…”

 

She placed the small gift down next to the other two on the coffee table (the surface of which looked as though it had been clawed by some kind of jungle cat which the human thought it polite not to remark upon) and Esme decided which one to go for next.

 

While Carlisle mouthed wordlessly, looking fairly angry, Alice smiled to herself.

 

Either Esme would open Edward’s and laugh, or Jasper’s and they would have a long conversation about his war days, which would end with Esme promising to get to know him better.

 

Not a bad day’s work.

 

However, as though seized by dark magic, like Aurora and the spinning wheel, Esme did neither of those things and reached for ‘Carlisle’s’ present.

 

Lifting it to her face, she considered the package before slipping her finger under the paper.  

 

As she tore the shiny paper, she gave herself a paper cut.

 

A tiny cut, one that itches more than stings, one that vanishes by the next morning. One that releases only a few, humanly-undetectable, invisible molecules of blood.

 

But released they were.

 

The room seemed to go ice-cold in the fraction of a second for Esme, with quick presence of mind, to stick her finger in her mouth. That minuscule slither of time was all it took.

 

The family wasn’t quite sure what was happening but as Esme gave a blood-curdling agonised scream, and the glass coffee table shattered beneath her, it became painfully obvious.

 

“Carlisle! No!” Emmett bellowed but Rosalie had a hand on his chest before he could intervene.

 

“Emmett, don’t!” she screamed. “He’ll kill you!”

 

And perhaps she was right. Dark swathes of power snaked their way from underneath Carlisle’s clothes as he took his prize. The animal could struggle all it wanted. He barely felt the pitiful human nails scraping at his skin.

 

_Twenty…_

 

“Carlisle, you’re killing her!” Edward shouted.

 

Of course he was. And she felt… _fantastic_ , better than he’d imagined she would. She tasted like…life. Pure, undiluted _life._

 

She tasted like power, like lust and greed and hate.

 

Like almonds and chocolate and a comforting embrace.

 

Like new spring and the breeze on the face of a newly-released prisoner.

 

_…Nineteen…_

 

Esme’s body was jerking under the influence of Carlisle’s venom, her body contorting violently like a broken marionette puppet. And her body _was_ broken, crushed under the force of the doctor’s life-saving hands, bones snapping like hollow strips of spaghetti, precious blood wasted on the craze of glass shards and confetti below her.

 

_…Eighteen…_

 

The vampires watched. Emmett with horror, Rosalie with fury and Edward with grief for his father, not managing to comprehend the vastness of what was exploding through Carlisle’s mind. 

 

Alice’s face was expressionless, numerous possible futures flashing before her eyes, possibilities that were vanishing into oblivion with every gulp of blood Esme lost.

 

Bella was counting.

 

_…Seventeen…sixteen…_

 

Edward came to kneel by his father’s side. Sometimes, painful though it had been, and little though Edward had appreciated it at the time, this man had offered him hard compassion. It would be traitorous, he felt, not to return the favour.

 

“Carlisle, Father, stop!” he growled urgently, standing as close as he dared, maybe even closer, to the air-borne death flowing from his father. “Find the _will_ to _stop._ You _can_ stop. Find the will, Father.”

 

He didn’t want to.

 

_…Thirteen…twelve…_

 

It was ecstasy.

 

It was agony.

 

_…Ten…_

 

Had he _ever_ known the dizzying heights that murder would take him…

 

The beast inside Carlisle shrieked with triumph as he laid waste to his own sanity and utterly destroyed himself. 

 

It was wrong, it shouldn’t be happening.

 

Esme was _dying._

 

Dying quickly, dying terrified, and, had her heart not been on fire, it might well have broken in half.

 

Meanwhile Dīs Pater was growing strong. He could feel it, feel the energy build inside, the rage. 

 

The new potential was invigorating.

 

Now that the world was meaningless, he could destroy… _all_ of it.

 

He held his prey tighter, half snarling, half sobbing as some part of him realised what was actually happening.

 

_…Nine…_

 

Rows upon rows of black-robed vampires bowing, terrified.

 

_…Eight…_

 

The joy of saving a life.

 

_…Seven…_

 

The exquisite tang of death.

 

_…Six…_

 

A comforting warm weight in his arms, laughing.

 

_…Five…_

 

A kiss in the sunset.

 

_…Four…_

 

Esme’s smile as they balanced in the tree, on top of the world.

 

_…Three…_

 

The Ohio farmhouse in the rain.

 

_…Two…_

 

A perfectly blond, perfectly-dimpled child with Esme’s blush and Carlisle’s human blue eyes.

 

_…One…_

 

At this unspoken cue, Carlisle’s first creation got up and walked to the windows and buried his head in his hands in despair and in mourning.

 

By this point, the woman’s screaming had well and truly stopped and the ocean of her thoughts had been swept from Edward’s hearing.

 

Esme Swan was no more.

 

_…Zero._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD!
> 
> THAT WENT SOUTH SO FAST!
> 
> (Heh heh heh)
> 
> Originally, this was going to be the conclusion to the story in a kind of ‘and what does this teach us’ kind of way but then I thought…who do I think I am, delivering morals? And also there is something waaaaaay better that can happen. So, please, read on.
> 
> All is not as you suspect…
> 
> Tschüssssss!!!!!


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